Well behaved women rarely make history...

Eliza's discovery of the week is...

... that sleep goes much better without teething, booster seats are neat-o, colorful fridge magnets are so entertaining that we now have about 10 more minutes to do dishes or cook, and that Aunt Katy is the most awesome babysitter ever!!

I surprised Steve with tickets to the National Opera's performance of Hansel and Gretel this last Saturday for his birthday. So Steve picked me up from work at 4:30, and we headed up to D.C. leaving Eliza with her Aunt Katy! Katy was such an awesome aunt and babysitter-- she had Eliza in bed by 7 and she even did our dishes!!!!!!! THANK YOU, KATY!!!

Eliza's fourth tooth broke through FINALLY early last week and since then she's returned to sleeping from about 8pm to 5 or 6am. WONDERFUL!
I also finally broke down and bought her a booster seat. They're really pretty cheap. I checked all the different store, price options- Target, Walmart, Ebay, etc., and actually found the best option for us at Kmart for only $20. Eliza really likes having her own tray to slap repeatedly and squish food on. I think she looks like such a big girl in it!

My discovery of the week is...

... teething biscuits! Yippee! Eliza loves 'em and although I don't love how they get EVERYWHERE, I love that she loves them, especially in her car seat. It steals us some major minutes of contentment! I also discovered that Eliza is quite the eager "helper" when it comes to wrapping birthday/Christmas presents! Shiny ribbon, crinkly paper, Mommy on the floor, what else would a 7 mnth old want?Another discovery of the week is that if Eliza doesn't want to be left alone on the ground or some other similar situation, she has learned to respond with a very shrill and loud SCREAM which was getting some very quick results for her for a while.

I think it's ironic that the week after I post something on people manipulating to have their needs met, Eliza developed this wonderful manipulation technique. But too bad for her, Steve and I are finally catching on to her little trick. Lucky for her, though, the next few weeks she'll have many willing arms to hold her as much as she wants while we're visiting family.

Isn't this the craziest photo? I think Eliza was startled by Mika or something. Funny girl! I love her shirt, by the way- Mom and Abby found it for me!! Thanks guys!

Most of you know that yesterday was Steve's birthday. We celebrated by inviting a few friends over to make sushi and eat cherry topped cheesecake! We had a blast (even Eliza- she was partying hard, laughing at Katy and babbling long into the night)- thanks to every one who came! Here is some of our pretty sushi that we made:

We made some basic California rolls but also had some excitement with fresh raw tuna, canned octupus, mango, and caviar wasabi spread! YUM YUM!