Moments

"Moments are the molecules that make up eternity."  Neal A. Maxwell

 

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

I'd say my eternity looks pretty good!

Reader's Digest version

So I know you're dying to know what we've been up to for the last couple of months :)

First of all, Eleanor has been practicing her artwork any chance she gets. She made this lovely mural with eyeliner one Sunday while we were downstairs visiting with some friends. Luckily I was able to get most of it off with a Mr. Clean eraser thing. Consequently, Eleanor also been practicing her time out skills!

We went to family night at the student rec center. Eleanor was so excited to see Zippy, the school's mascot. They also projected Toy Story 3 onto the wall so the kids could watch the movie while playing in the pool.



Here's a video of Eleanor giving Zippy a high five. She loves Zippy!




Penelope turned 8 months and is still cute as ever!





Eleanor went to her first birthday party and she LOVED it. Everything was princess and Eleanor is still talking about Pepper's birthday party to this day.
Here she is with her friend Hannah.



You can also see in that picture that Eleanor got her hair cut, it was getting so long.
I decided it was short hair time so I cut mine as well!



Andrew's mom (Nana, aka Ya-Ya) came in town to watch the girls while I went to Utah for my brother and sister's graduation from BYU. (That's another blog for another time. It was so much fun to be with my mom and all my siblings and so nice to have a little break!)



We brought Nana some flowers and Eleanor was SOOO excited
to give them to her when she arrived.




Eleanor got some big girl underwears and a potty book for Easter and we attempted some potty training. It was slightly unsuccessful so I think we'll try again in a couple of months :)



Penelope loved having something new to chew on.




Isn't this the best picture ever? She LOVES mealtime!




The Cleveland Zoo opened up a new elephant exhibit, which was always my favorite animal to see at the zoo when I was little.





Here's Eleanor and Andrew at the petting zoo. Eleanor loved talking to the animals.
She kept saying, "goat, what are you doing?"



Penelope is a messy mouth as usual, but still smiling!






Eleanor made a great discovery to keep her hands warm while eating freezie pops...



Penelope wanted in on the treats...



Smoothie making with dad...



Penelope turned 9 months (can you believe that??)




And lastly, we love when the weather is nice and that we can finally go outside and go to the park. This summer is going to be fun because Eleanor can actually "do" the park all by herself. I won't have to climb on the equipment and go down the slides with her. She even has a new-found love for the big swings. She used to be terrified of going high, but now she loves it! Bring on the nice weather!!

Time flies when you're having fun

I can't believe how much my girls are changing everyday! Eleanor has been doing a lot of pretend play lately. She is so imaginative and creative when she plays. I think this is probably much different than I was as a child. I imagine I just sat in a corner and counted things or something like that.

She likes to play hide and seek with Donald Duck, he's usually hiding in the closet in the family room. The other day she even wanted me to take a picture of him, which is pretty big for Eleanor because she LOATHES taking pictures. Here is Eleanor pointing to Donald Duck. He's sitting on the picnic bench next to Buzz Lightyear - you might not be able to see him (he's imaginary).

She's very much into tea parties with all of her bears. And lately has even added smoothies to the menu.

Today we had a pretty rainy yucky day so we stayed indoors. Eleanor kept talking about going to the park and finally I found her in the living room "going down the slide" and asking me if Penelope wanted to swing.

Then she wanted to ride the choo choo.

Eleanor is so full of energy! She is exhausting and wonderful and fun all at the same time and brings so much joy to my life!

Speaking of bringing joy to my life, Penelope is pretty good at that, too! You can't look at her without getting a smile out of her. Oh, she is cute!

Remember this little baby...

Well, I'm happy to report she now LOVES bath time.

Penelope is my little sweetheart. She is so patient and smiley and full of life. She wants to do everything that Eleanor is doing. She has even mastered going up the stairs. I love watching Penelope and Eleanor's personalities develop. They are so different in so many ways, but I just know they are going to be best buds!

All in a day's work

On Monday night after I bathed the girls, I set Eleanor up downstairs watching Mickey Mouse while I went upstairs to feed Penelope and put her to bed. Well about halfway through feeding Penelope I thought I heard Eleanor come upstairs and go into the bathroom. I didn't think much of it because she had been wanting to put a clippie back in her hair after her bath so I figured she was just playing in the basket of hair stuff. Well I put Penelope down to sleep just in time to here Eleanor saying "uh-oh mama" over and over again. She had baby formula powder all over her and upon further investigation it was all over the bathroom floor and toilet. She had dumped out the entire can! Eleanor was only concerned about her jammies being dirty and wanted to pick out a new outfit. Mondays are long days as it is since Andrew has class until 11, so needless to say I got pretty frustrated with Eleanor! Well after all the yelling and cleaning up Penelope was awake and wasn't going back to sleep. It was our last can of formula so I loaded the girls up and we headed out to the store to get more formula. We stopped at McDonald's on the way home because there's nothing an ice cream cone or a hot fudge sundae won't fix!

I'm a little (2 months) behind in blogging so here's a look at what we've been up to ....

Penelope turned 6 months

Then Penelope turned 7 months and loves it when I play the piano

Eleanor thinks she's pretty good at playing the piano

Eleanor like to dress up as me and Andrew

Penelope is a crawling machine especially when she is on the hunt for paper or electrical wires

She also follows Eleanor around all day long

Eleanor thinks she is a princess. And speaking of princesses, we got Tangled yesterday and Eleanor has probably watched it about 5 times already. Which explains why I have a chance to blog. And hopefully Rapunzel can babysit her so I can get some spring cleaning done.

Penelope is loving food, especially real stuff like spaghetti, mac and cheese, cheerios, animal crackers, veggie straws, yogurt, string cheese. She also loves sticking out her tongue and is working on waving and clapping. She started pulling up on stuff last week and now she is obsessed with standing. She wants to stand any chance she gets. The race is on to see if she will walk before I did. But she's running out of time, she only has about 2 weeks left ;) She's also been a really crummy sleeper. She had RSV a couple of weeks ago and ever since then her sleeping is off. And I think she's about to cut a tooth or two. I'll be so happy when they come through because then maybe I'll get some good sleep. (fingers crossed!!)

My mom sent Eleanor a package of some Mardi Gras beads, a tutu and green sparkly shoes so she can be Tinkerbell! I think she went about a week without taking it off (except to bathe and get dressed, but then it went right back on).

These days she likes to pick out what to wear and sometimes she requests an outfit change several times. This is today's third outfit...

Maybe if it would ever warm up around here she could actually leave the house in spring dresses.

We had some nice spring weather that lasted about a week. Now we are back to cold winter weather and it is actually snowing as I type. We are so anxious for warmer weather!

And to close I had a video of Eleanor's favorite hobby, reading, but it is just taking way to long to load. She has been so into books lately, and I love it! Here she is after her nap just hanging out in her room and reading books. Some of her favorites are Go Dog Do, Five Little Monkeys, Fancy Nancy, anything princess, Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (which is actually what she calls chicken now), Mr. Brown Can Moo, and A Fly Went By.