Happy Valentine's Day!

Here are some pictures I took of our little valentine!
I just love this little girl so much!

Snow, Shawn Johnson, and Thumb Sucking

Last Wednesday we had quite the snow storm. Overnight we got about 4 inches of snow and then during the day we got about 4-6 more inches!
A view from our front door

Luckily Andrew's school had the good sense to cancel classes for the day. It worked out really well for Andrew to have a "day off". He had been stressing about a paper he had to get done on top of a heavier-than-normal load of reading. He spent practically the whole day working on it and felt pretty confident about the research he got done. Also another shout out for Andrew...he's been working really hard on his resume and cover letters and has been applying for almost every summer internship he sees. The good news is that he's got two interviews next week. Let's hope he can get a good one!

After it had stopped snowing Andrew went out and shoveled snow around our parking spots and the sidewalk for almost 2 hours. SOmething new we've learned living in such a snowy place is that you have to shovel right after it snows otherwise it will be too frozen to do it later. I'm so glad Andrew did my parking spot for me so I could actually get out and go places without being stuck and literally snowed in.


Over the weekend Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson came to the Women's basketball game at Andrew's school. She did a little Q&A segment at half-time. She is so little-a whopping 4'11". It was so cute to see a bunch of little gymnasts in the audience all excited to get her autograph and take pictures with her after the game. Unfortunately, we didn't stay until the end of the game to get our picture taken with her.


Eleanor enjoyed her first sporting event. It was basically during her nap time and it was way too loud for her to go to sleep so she was just a little zombie, poor thing. But she loved looking around and being in a new, albeit strange, place.

Here's a video of me and Eleanor jamming out to some music before the game started.


In other news, Eleanor has been getting really good at having a routine. She sleeps through the night about once a week. That has been really nice! Her typical day goes like this... Wake up around 7:30 AM, hour nap around 9 AM, hour nap around 11:30AM, three-hour nap around 2 PM (my favorite), and then bath time around 6 and in bed by 7 PM, and usually one wake-up in the middle of the night around 4 AM. The past couple of days she hasn't really done the long nap around 2 PM because we've all been a little under the weather. Hopefully she'll get back into the swing of things soon.

Eleanor has also started sucking her little thumb. It is just too cute! It's hard to catch her in the act, but here is a glimpse.



And of course this blog wouldn't be complete with more pictures of Eleanor...


Here's another video of our little cutie. --Don't be jealous of my beautiful singing voice in the background :)

She is just getting so big! It is so fun to watch her grow and change and learn new things everyday! We just love our little Eleanor!

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!