3 MONTHS OLD!

Eleanor turned three months old yesterday! I'm not sure what the cutoff is to be considered a newborn, but she definitely doesn't seem like one anymore.

And to celebrate her three month birthday Eleanor slept through the night last night!!! I put her down around 7:30 and she didn't wake up until 6:45 this morning. I fed her thinking she was up for the day but she actually went back to sleep until about 8:30. It was great!

Here is what else she has been up to this month...

One night last week she kept rolling over onto her stomach after I had put her down in bed, so I had to set up these road blocks (they just velcro on). Since then she has been sleeping pretty well. I think they keep her from waking herself up even more when she starts squirming too much.

She's really alert and follows me everywhere I go and just stares and smiles at me, who wouldn't want a little stalker like this?

She is getting really strong. She turns over to her left with ease now and she is in the beginning stages of rolling to her right. Soon she will be an ambi-roller :) Also, once she gets on her stomach she seems to enjoy herself more and can stay like this for a good ten minutes.


She has been practicing her push-ups and has started holding her head up really well.

She's figured out that she has control of her arms. Here's a video of her figuring out her right hand.

She loves bath time and gets really excited to hear the water running.


She's been practicing staring; I think she could beat just about anyone in a staring contest.


She's also starting shoving both hands in her mouth, it's pretty endearing, don't you think?


You can kind of see it in this next picture, she's also been drooling a lot lately.

Here is a video of her talking.

She's getting better at sitting up. Here she is hanging out with some of her buddies.

She is a happy baby and is very quick to smile. We've even heard a few little giggles recently.

On a side note, here are some pictures we took at Olan Mills with Andrew's family over Christmas break while we were in North Carolina.



Eleanor is just about 2 months in these pictures...it's crazy to think what a difference just a month makes in a baby's life. We just love our sweet little Eleanor and are so glad she is ours!

Here she comes...

We can pretend it's summer, right?

Today Eleanor and I had a little fashion show. I wanted to try on some of her 3-6 month clothes. While I was pregnant I bought Eleanor some warm weather clothes before I knew we were moving to Ohio. I thought we'd be moving somewhere in the south and she'd for sure be wearing t-shirts and shorts around march. I just didn't have the heart to return them once I knew we'd be in cold weather. (I have a hard time returning cute things I find on sale.) So here's hoping either a) it warms up soon, or b) she doesn't grow too fast so they will still fit this summer. Otherwise they'll just have to be hand-me-downs.

So, without further ado, here's a sneak peak of
Eleanor's Summer 2009 collection...

Typical Eleanor face...

This is Eleanor's attempt at "fierce"...

And now, back to reality. Here she is all bundled up after her bath tonight. Summer or Winter, I still think she's pretty cute!

She'll be walking in no time :)

This is the life...

BRRRR!

It is SO cold outside! This weekend it got as cold as -15 degrees. Yes, that's right, negative 15 degrees! The Weather Channel even issued a wind chill advisory. Here's what they said...

A Wind Chill Advisory means that very cold air combined with the effects from wind speeds will generate low wind chills. This will result in frost bite and lead to hypothermia if precautions are not taken.

Hypothermia? Really? Yikes! We've also probably gotten about ten inches of snow in the last week or so. Needless to say we stayed inside all weekend except for church this morning. Actually, now that I think about it, I have only left the house about 3 or 4 times in the last 2 weeks. It takes me like 30 minutes just to get out of my parking spot because of all the snow! Plus, ever since my accident (click here and here for more details), I'm not a fan of driving in the snow.

So, if you hadn't already guessed, we are going a little stir crazy. I got Eleanor a little play mat thing (we call it her jungle gym) with things hanging overhead to alleviate some of this monotony. I'm not sure what I did with her before I got this. She can spend a good 20 minutes playing on it by herself. Here she is before church this morning...

(This is her new look she gives me whenever I get the camera out and start soliciting her for a smile-a blank stare)

She does better with candid shots I guess

She really seems to like it and has started reaching for things a lot more now. Tonight she even rolled over 4 times in about a 15 minute period! Hopefully she'll figure out how to roll from her stomach to her back next so she won't get so frustrated when she gets stuck on her stomach!

One more thing, does anyone else notice her reddish-copper tinted hair in those pictures? I'm excited to see what it will grow to look like. I never would have thought I'd have a little red-head! She sure is cute!

ROLLIN' ROLLIN' ROLLIN'

Eleanor rolled over all by herself on Thursday night. The whole process takes about ten minutes so I'll spare you a video. Here is a play by play of her new trick!

This is the position she stays in the longest, it looks pretty comfy, right? (This is usually the position you can find me sleeping in, well minus the hands in mouth thing) She just sucks on her little hands and gets a little sidetracked at this point...

This is when she usually gets a little frustrated and just digs her little face into the ground...

Once she gets on her tummy she likes to make all kinds of funny sounding squeals as she trys to pull her arms out from under her...

Yay for Eleanor. She is getting so big! I can't believe she is now 11 weeks! We sure do love her!

OUR CHRISTMAS BREAK

Andrew got almost a whole month off of school for his Christmas break so we decided we'd make the most of it. I found some really cheap multi-trip flights to North Carolina and then to New Orleans. We were able to spend Christmas with Andrew's family and New Year's with my family. We had such a fun Christmas break! Here's a look at some of the things we did...

We started our vacation in Leland, North Carolina where the weather was much warmer than here in Ohio so we got to take little Eleanor out for a walk around the neighborhood.

When Andrew's sister Jessica and her husband Terance got into town we headed up to the beach in Nag's Head, North Carolina. It was a six hour drive from Leland and Eleanor did surprisingly well in her car seat.

While in Nags Head we went to the aquarium...

I guess only Andrew and I got the memo when the lady taking the picture told us to act scared :)

Swimming with the fishes

Eleanor and me at the beach (it actually got pretty chilly there)

We also visited a VERY Christmas-decorated house

We also went to the Wright Brothers Museum in Kitty Hawk. I thought it was fascinating! The Wright brothers are some of my new heroes.

This is a replica of their plane that took off in 1903

This is the spot where the plane lifted off for the first time

These are the markers for each of the spots that the plane made it to on their first few runs

While in North Carolina we also saw a couple of movies and went to Sonic almost everyday!

We headed to New Orleans on December 29th. Our first night there was probably one of my favorite memories of our whole vacation. My mom and the kids had set up some tables outside and we had a nice little barbecue with some Bourgeois sausage and hamburgers! It was so fun to be with all my family!

Since Andrew, Eleanor, and I were the last to arrive we still had Christmas presents to swap. Emily got me a pretty little picture frame with a picture of Eleanor in it.

I got Freddie a tie and he's always had a thing for cross-stitched sayings so I made him one

I got Ethan and Grace some shirts from the Outer Banks.

Emily and Eleanor

Sophie, Ethan and Grace

The next day we went down to the French Quarter and got some beignets at Cafe Du Monde








All the kids...


Here are Jessica's kids on their last night in town.
We got a king cake! Yum!

Me and Grace and Amy in the background

Andrew and I went to Palace Cafe one day for lunch and then saw Hurricane on the Bayou at the IMAX Theater.

We also went and walked around the Riverwalk

We went to Thibodaux on New Year's day and my
Grandma and Grandpa Bourgeois got to meet little Eleanor.

After church on Sunday we went to Audubon Park
and took some pictures. Here are some of our favorites...









I just love Eleanor's little grumpy face...

Here is our last night in town. Eleanor sure is loved!
Giving Granny Nanny kisses

So, as you can see, we had an awesome vacation! We especially loved being with family! It is pretty lonely coming back home and just having it be the three of us. Eleanor was really getting used to having lots of people around. She is "talking" a lot more and much louder.

When we got back home we were greeted with a STINKY fridge. Somehow it got turned off while we were gone and everything went bad. We've tried everything to clean it! Yesterday Eleanor and I locked ourselves upstairs in her room for the whole afternoon while Andrew scrubbed down the fridge with ammonia. That stuff is potent! The fridge still reeks today so Andrew just went over to the office to ask about getting a new one.

I guess that's what happened after Hurricane Katrina...everyone came home to stinky fridges that had to be thrown out, yuck!

Well I guess it wouldn't be a blog post without some random pictures of Eleanor. Here she is in her new Bumbo chair. She is getting so strong!

And to close, here's a video of our little munchkin. She does this wierd thing where she moves her head back and forth over and over again. It usually means she's about ready for a nap :)