Happy Holidays

Since Eleanor and I will be gone for most of December, we wanted to get a jump start on Christmas decorations so we put up our Christmas tree last weekend. When we lived in Washington Andrew's grandparents gave us their old artificial tree and some lights. I wasn't so sure about having a fake tree because we always had a real one growing up, but I have to tell you I think I'm sold on the idea. It actually turned out really nice. Eleanor really enjoyed putting it up. Her favorite part...the candy canes. She doesn't even pull off any of the ornaments, the candy canes are the only thing that have caught her eye.

Andrew hard at work.

The finished product.

We still need a tree topper and a tree skirt. Maybe after Christmas I'll hunt for some on clearance.

Eleanor is the official collector and sharer of candy canes.

For Thanksgiving Andrew's parents came to visit. Andrew has a cousin up in Cleveland so we went up there on Thanksgiving day. We had a yummy meal and they had more pies than I've ever seen for dessert. Eleanor was more interested in playing with their little dog than eating pie. Dogs are her new fascination. When we go on walks and she hears a dog bark she always perks up, points, and mumbles something like "what's that?" in a cute little whisper. Our neighbors also have some dogs and she stares at them out of the window all the time. She even tries to make a barking sound but it sounds more like quacking. It's so fun to watch her learn and grow and see what things catch her interest. I think we all know it wasn't me that taught her to like dogs!

On Friday we visited a local mansion that decorates their house and grounds for Christmas. It was so pretty. (Too bad I couldn't take any pictures inside so I could steal some of their decorating ideas one day)


Andrew's parents

Inside the conservatory. (The names of all the parts of the house reminded me of playing Clue)

Here we are in front of a Santa sculpture. I got Eleanor to say HO HO HO once, but she won't do it again.

In other news, Eleanor is a little bit of a TV bug. At least 2 or 3 times a day she'll bring me the Mary Poppins DVD case and try and get me over to the TV with her. We usually just watch it in the morning right when she wakes up. It's a good way for us all to ease into the day :) Don't worry though, we don't watch the whole thing in one sitting. We start at Spoonful of Sugar and she'll watch it for about 20 minutes and then find something else to do. Then later in the day we'll just pick up where we left off. :) She really gets into "Step in Time" and does a funny little dance. Here she is in her element.

(I know, I know, not the best parenting technique, but it works for us)

Other exciting news, Eleanor's crib got recalled. We brought it back to the store and got a $200 credit. Woohoo! We picked out a new one and they were having a special that if you spent more than 100 bucks you got a big stuffed animal for free. Needless to say, our new crib cost more than $100 so we are now the proud owners of a big stuffed puppy dog! Eleanor loves it!


And we love Eleanor!

Getting the hang of it

This week Eleanor's really been figuring out the whole walking thing. She's even gone from sitting to squatting to standing a couple of times.
Here's some video of her practicing her walking.

She found my stash of Laffy Taffy's in one of the kitchen cabinets and thought she was pretty sneaky. I guess her flavor of choice is banana.

Can you believe how big she is?? We love our little buggie boo!

cute little skeleton

For Halloween this year we didn't go trick or treating, just trunk or treating. Actually Andrew took Eleanor home early to put her to bed. The Young Women were in charge of a couple of booths so I had to stay and supervise that and help with clean up. Her costume doubles as pajamas and it glows in the dark so it was funny to go check on her in bed that night and see the little skeleton glowing. On the actual night of Halloween we went shopping for a washer and dryer. I'm happy to report that we are the proud owners of a Maytag washer and dryer. I feel like a grown up owning an appliance like that. Afterward we went and got free burritos at Chipotle. All we did was wrap one of our arms in foil for their dress up like a burrito and get a free burrito day. Maybe next year Eleanor will have a real Halloween experience. But I guess it wasn't too bad because she was loving the tootsie roll pops...


Eleanor is now the proud owner of 4 new teeth on the top! Can you believe that? That's gotta be pretty painful getting 4 new teeth in just a matter of a week or so. Because of all that thumb sucking they are coming in kind of crooked though! Doesn't she look like a jack-o-lantern?! A really cute little jack-o-lantern!

Since Eleanor turned 1 last week we've upgraded to a front facing carseat and to say she loves it is an understatement. She's just been loving life since facing forward.
Here's a video of her first time (and don't mind her tacky flower power carseat, it was on clearance)...

My BFF

Eleanor is my best friend (well, besides Andrew). I love this little girl so much. It makes me so happy to spend every waking minute with her. Here are some of her birthday pictures. I still haven't set up the scanner yet, so these are just pictures of the actual pictures so the quality isn't the best. But don't worry, you can still see how cute she is.

Birthday Girl!

Eleanor turned 1 on Saturday! We spent the morning moving and getting unpacked and then we opened some presents! Here she is with her new car (and yes she spent her whole birthday in her pajamas)...

We had her birthday cake on Sunday. Here's a video of everyone singing to her...


Andrew's parents came from North Carolina for the weekend to celebrate with Eleanor.


We love our little birthday girl!!!

And to think a year ago we looked something like this...

And to close here are some parting shots of Eleanor on the go in her little car.

so big

Before we move this weekend, I wanted to get a video of Eleanor going down the stairs.

Yesterday Eleanor took like 5 steps in a row all by herself! She was so pleased with herself and is getting a little more daring. I got her on camera taking a couple of steps. The only problem is, when I am so close she just takes a step and then just dives into me. I'll try and get some better footage. But for now, here's the best I can get.

work it tootie

(Freddie, that title's for you)
Just some random pictures of Eleanor since fall has arrived.

Don't you just love her cute little smiley face?!

Here's her attempt at blowing kisses...


And to close, here are a couple of movie clips...

She loves to "brush her teeth" aka chew on toothbrushes...

And here's our dancing queen.

Less than a month

until this little person is one year old!

Can you believe it?? I can't. She is just getting too big. It is so fun to watch her little personality. Too bad every time I put a camera in her face she looks at me like I'm crazy or like she's scared so it's hard to capture just how cute her expressions are.
Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Good thing she's still herself for movies. Here's a clip of our little Cougar fan...



She's still too much of a scaredy-cat to walk by herself, but she loves cruising along the furniture.

She loves books, especially her baby book, and sometimes if I'm not watching carefully she likes to tear paper, like she did to one of my cookbooks she found in one of the kitchen drawers - playing/exploring in the kitchen is also a new development.

I really love spending all day everyday with Eleanor. She is so much fun and I think she's so cute! She says mama and dada, although I'm not sure how purposeful it is when she says them. But I'm pretty sure she can say hi and yum and she knows what they mean. Everywhere we go she just waves at everybody, especially other little kids. She's a friendly little person and it makes me so sad when people don't wave back to her. She also gets excited when she sees me putting my shoes on because she knows that means we're going somewhere. She isn't really into baby food anymore. Gerber Graduates are more her thing. Stuff like baby ravioli and lasagna and chicken and noodles. She also likes mandarin oranges, baby cheese puffs and cheerios. She hates getting her face and hands cleaned when she's done eating though. She also hates getting dressed. She is such a busy little girl. She's even figured out how to come down the stairs. She goes up and down them about 2 times a day. She loves to watch Mary Poppins sing Spoonful of Sugar and she even tries to snap her fingers. We love our little Eleanor!

Cousins

Last weekend for Labor day we drove down to Cincinnati to visit my sister Jessica who just had a baby - Baby Jane is just too cute! I wanted to take her with me!! Instead, I took her other 2 girls back home with us for a week so Jessica could have some peace and quiet.

(This picture isn't really relevant, but I think it's kind of funny. We put Eleanor in her cousin Ethan's old halloween costume to see how it fit.)

Meet Grace.

Meet Sophie.

Here are some of the things we did...
-Decorated onesies for Baby Jane.

-Watched Mary Poppins (a lot!).
-Created a hat like Mary Poppins.

-Tried on all of Eleanor's bows (multiple times).

-"Picked flowers" (By the way, this side by side pose they do is all their idea. I thought it was cute how every time I went to take a picture of them they would immediately assume this position and hang on to each other)

-Attempted to go to a little splash park but duh, it was closed because it's after Labor day.

-So we had to settle for just the regular old park instead.

-Went bowling.



On Saturday Andrew took Eleanor to the football game. She loves being outside so it was right up her alley. (Andrew took these with his phone.)


We had a fun time and Eleanor loved having her cousins around to play with. She didn't even mind getting the boot from her room. Eleanor slept in the pack 'n play in the bathroom, Sophie slept in Eleanor's crib, and Grace fell asleep in our bed and then we moved her downstairs when we went to bed. It was pretty exhausting but somehow we found a way to not go crazy in our little apartment.

I think our little Eleanor had a little too much fun and got tuckered out. She's been a little sick since they left. She threw up and has had a fever of 103 degrees. I've got a doctor's appointment in the morning to see what's up. It's so sad to see her sick. She just wants to be held and/or lie down. I actually kind of like being able to just snuggle up with her, she hasn't let me do that since she was like 2 months old. Since then she has been on the go! Here are some pictures of our little sickie.

Don't you just want to smooch those little cheeks?