SHE's our little pumpkin. Happy Halloween!

SHE's at the neighborhood petting zoo

SHE's getting a manicure

SHE's family time

Sierra's 1st Birthday (DATE CHANGE)

Robbie changed his birthday party from 11/14 to 11/13, and Jaden will be in Atlanta 11/13, so we changed our date.

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "cloverh@yahoo.com"
To: dianafu@gmail.com; Kevin Fine ; Jennifer Lu ; norman.liang@gmail.com; adam_elman@hotmail.com; Tobi Sniderman
Cc: josh_elman@yahoo.com
Sent: Wed, October 27, 2010 12:23:38 PM
Subject: Re: Sierra's 1st Birthday (DATE CHANGE)


We are changing the date and time to Sunday, Nov. 7 from 2pm-4pm since this works better for everyone. Note that Daylight Saving Time ends that day, so it will be 2pm new time (3pm old time).

Looking forward to seeing you!

Love,
Sierra

SHE's rooting for the Giants

First (more than a couple) steps!

Last weekend Sierra excitedly walked again and again throughout the weekend. It's amazing how fast she went from a couple of steps to this! For example, yesterday morning, I put her against the mattress standing and ran into the hallway to get her sippy cup for a second, and when I went back into the room, she was walking to me!

She goes about 3-5 steps and then falls. Saturday she walked across the living room sofa play area to Josh. Yesterday she walked down the upstairs hallway about 5 steps.

When Aunt Phoebe arrived in the afternoon yesterday, she also took some steps in front of her. We had cake to celebrate Auntie Phoebe's birthday! (None for Sierra yet since there was whipped cream in it.)

Today we will try Sierra on yogurt drops (her first dairy) and hope it goes well.

Sierra's 1st Birthday

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "cloverh@yahoo.com"
To: dianafu@gmail.com; Kevin Fine ; Jennifer Lu ; norman.liang@gmail.com; adam_elman@hotmail.com; Tobi Sniderman
Cc: josh_elman@yahoo.com
Sent: Mon, October 25, 2010 12:34:37 PM
Subject: Sierra's 1st Birthday


Dear Kui, Jaden, and Robbie,

We would love to have you over for a small celebration for Sierra's 1st birthday on Saturday, Nov. 13 at 2:30pm. We thought about doing something big, but think Sierra would have more fun hanging out with her 3 closest baby friends. :) Please no gifts and no germs/colds! Please let us know if you can make it and we hope to see you there!

Love,
Sierra

SHE loves Naya

SHE wishes Auntie Daisy a Happy Birfday

SHE's out at the mall

SHE's taking buzz for a ride

SHE's at the gate

SHE's bathtime

SHE's sitting up high

Update on the Jumperoo

Sierra has started to love this thing the past couple months. She jumps HARD in this thing, giggling away! As in really THUMPING lately. Like you can hear it from downstairs. The whole house can feel it. I think she might be outgrowing it heightwise, bc I am not sure pounding her feet/ankles on the floor like that is good for her. It will be hard to give this one up!

Foods she likes & dislikes, 11 months

Sierra eats pretty much all freshly made (and ground in her baby food processor) meals now. Mostly we use organic chicken bones to make a dense bone soup and use it as a base to boil small amounts of veggies and/or meat and then blend it.

She likes all vegetables including various greens. Last weekend she tried brussel sprouts and they were fine. She loves picking up little broccoli flowers that I cut up for her - as much as cheerios!

She loves jarred fruit (especially pears and prunes), but is not a big fan of most fresh fruit, either cut up small or ground. She'll eat small cut up grapes. She loves biting off small bites of banana. She eats small bits of apple (but often gags on it - too hard). But not pear, peach, plum, like she used to a month or so ago.

She likes other finger foods too besides cheerios, like chex (the organic brand of it) and broken up corn rice cakes.

She gags (and will throw up the food she has eaten) if she doesn't like something. Winnie said other babies don't do this. Why she doesn't just spit it out is beyond me.

Ke-ai

I can't believe I have not posted on this yet. Sierra has this cute thing she does where she tilts her head to the right when we said "Ke-ai!" (cute in chinese). She started doing this right around when she started solids (6-7 months) and gran would say "Ke-ai oh!" and so then she started tilting her head in response. There's a nice cushion around her high chair so she can lean her head on it when she does this. When she started doing this in her portable booster chair with no cushion, she lost her balance and soon realize that you need to hang on to the chair or tray before doing the ke-ai! :)

On a related note, she also very early on would be standing on a chair in the dining room and tilt her head to the side to get a better view around it and into the kitchen, which was cute too. It kind of reminds me of how dogs are cute when they do that.

Cruising and walking

Sierra has been getting better and better at walking with her fisher price stride to ride lion. She can stop on her own and control the speed better so we let her toddle along on her own now without us holding the lion to keep it from sliding out from under her. We have a rice bag in it to weigh it down to keep it from going too fast. She has loved the lion ever since gran got it (after much research) the first week of september. She laughs at the lion roaring and pushes its nose to make it roar and play music. She'll spot the lion, crawl up to it, pull herself up and get going!

Sierra definitely is cruising around furniture now. She's also take a couple steps on her own and balanced standing on her own for a couple seconds. Last Friday night, she took a couple steps walking from my arms to gran's arms, which is the first time I saw it. Gran has seen it before.

She is doing a bit less of the combat crawl sometimes now. On hardwood floors, especially, since I am guessing it is less comfortable to combat crawl on hardwoods!

Her sleeping continues (knock on wood) to be much better at night, ever since around Kui's birthday (Diana's new baby whom we visited last weekend). She will sleep straight through to her early morning nursing. Monday she didn't even get up until 7:30am for nursing, but then she stayed awake (as opposed to went back to sleep until 8 or 8:30 when she nurses at 6).

Sierra claps her hands when you say "pai pai shou" (clap hands in Chinese). and shakes her head when you say "yao yao tou" (shake your head in chinese). It's amazing how much she picks up these days. Gran has her turning her hands up when she is out of food on her high chair tray (and Gran says "meiyou le!" - meaning no more left! (i.e., give me more)) She also has her pushing the tray out with both hands (meaning "I'm done eating!") We need to teach her more signs besides "milk".

Sierra really enjoys sitting and going through piles of old greeting cards. She'll keep herself occupied with this sitting quietly for quite some time - at least 10-15 minutes usually. This started a few months ago - gran just started giving her random piles of old greeting cards from my drawer (we remove the ones with glitter or buttons for safety) and she goes through and studies them one by one. Winnie noticed she'll pick a card up upside down, look at it, recognize that it's upside down, and then rotate it around so it is right side up. It's very cute.

SHE is copying daddy snapping his fingers

SHE's taking her new friend for a ride

SHE pumpkin patching with Jaden and Norm

SHE's a computer girl

sierra's walking with her lion

From: Josh Elman
Date: October 15, 2010 9:08:45 PM PDT
To: linda elman , Don Elman , Daisy Huang , Adam Elman , Tobi Sniderman , Katty Huang
Subject: sierra's walking with her lion
Reply-To: Josh Elman


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GKK_JG_cvU



-Josh

SHE's racing

SHE's the yin to our yang

Sleeping through the night?

About a week ago, the weather starting getting cooler (it's hot again now) and suddenly sierra was sleeping better at night, as in not getting up once or twice before her 5-6am nursing! It was pretty striking. I think there were a few nights where she got up once but the last week has been amazing. The last 2 nights she even slept in until 7am for her morning nursing! Whoa. We are not holding our breaths, but are hoping we are turning a corner...

Apple

Sierra was at whole foods the other day (Friday 10/8) and saw a big pile of apples and said "app... app... app" with special emphasis on the "p". She did it again when I showed her some apples at home the next day (10/9) and has been doing it ever since. So it's official. Apple is Sierra's 2nd word (after "wa" in chinese for socks, and perhaps after "mama" which she says a lot around me, but i'm never quite sure if she knows it's me -- everyone seems to think she knows though.)

She signs milk all the time nowadays but we've started to think that it's more when she sees or hears me, like i'm equivalent to milk or something. :)

Saturday 10/9 we had a photographer come over to take some photos of Miss S and us. Hopefully we get some good ones that capture her cuteness. (There are a few posts below of her face with a scratch on it that I was trying to show the photographer to see if she could photoshop them out.)

Aunt Phoebe will be visiting for a week in a couple weeks for her birthday and we are really looking forward to Sierra getting to know her auntie better since it's been awhile and Sierra has changed so much!

SHE's flying

SHE's a leaner (from Mon)

SHE's exploring a new shelf

SHE's at Golden Gate Park (Sat)

SHE's trying on princess clothes

SHE's driving

SHE's kissy kiss

SHE's looking at herself

SHE likes mizuna

SHE's "hiking"

SHE's been babyproofed

SHE with Robbie

SHE's back with daddy

SHE's reading with mommy

SHE's reading with mommy