Wednesday, December 11, 2013

14 Month Update

I'm behind on my monthly updates, but here are some fun things that Eleanor does at this stage.

She backs her self up to sit on my lap.

Finally starting to give kisses when she's asked! She leans in, open mouthed like a shark for a kiss. And then makes the smack sound when she pulls away.


I tell her to "brings it to mama'' (a baby, a ball, my phone across the room- haha) and she is so proud of herself when she does!

'Dah' (more) after every round of "The More We Get Together"

She pulls out her pacifier with her tiny hand over the entire paci.

Goes to the pantry and stands in front of it saying more, more.

She reaches her little hands through the dog gate to pet the dogs. Or throw her toys in there for them to play with eat.


She tells them to HUSH every time they bark or whine.. which has carried over to telling PEOPLE to hush- including a little boy we were seated by at a restaurant the other day, every time he made a noise or cried!!

She hugs her baby, and kisses (licks) her and feeds her the bottle.


She's completely quiet when new people are around, but says HI as soon as they walk away.

When we count to 3, we say 1.... 2..... and then she puts both hands above her hands and says eeeeeee!

Loves to do in and out. A few pens and an empty apple juice bottle kept her entertained for days.


When she poots, she immediately laughs and looks around to see if anybody heard her. If we did and we laugh too, she will seriously stand there and try to do it again (and again!!)
LOVES baths. She will stand at the bathtub while I'm running the water and bounce up and down, she's in such a hurry!
Not all roses around here though, fits are more and more often. If she doesn't get fed fast enough, held when she wants, looked at the wrong way.. Wear me out, little girl!

She is such a good eater, and I can't think of anything that she will turn down. But right now, her favorites are green beans and mandarin oranges.
Things You Say: Hush, nuh uh, dah (more), dad, hi, hello (when she has a phone), hi jase, night night, eieio, row row row, mama, ... I know there are more I just can't think of!
Things You Do: Say 'ssssss' when we ask what a snake says, look up and point when we say where's the light, feed and love your baby, "wink" with both eyes, high five, lay down and say night night when you see a pillow or blanket on the floor, lay your head on my lap and rub my arms or legs and say night night, blows kisses- complete with the smack sound

Thursday, November 21, 2013

queen of story time.

one of my very favorite activities during the week is story time.
we go every Thursday,
and I've been feeling a little brave and taking both of the babies on Monday, too.

its so fun to watch Eleanor interact with other toddlers her age.
she is in a bit of a kissing phase, so I do try to deter that a little.
{I don't want to!! But I know not every parent wants baby germs spread}

we do the same 5-6 songs at the beginning.
Eleanor's favorite is the popcorn song, where at the end she "POPS"
and I throw her in the air.
then there are bells to shake, a parachute to stand over and sometimes bubbles to pop.

We usually stay a little bit after its over and I just let her run around,
and recently, she has started going through the tunnels.
{and by that I mean going in halfway and just sitting}

Its such a great program that the library puts on.
Plus it seems like all the mommy and me classes are in Bentonville,
and it doesn't work for us to drive 45 minutes away.

So here a few pics from our storytime adventures:





Sunday, November 3, 2013

Halloween 2013

Somebody's not monkeying around about Halloween!
We managed to stretch the festivities out for a full week, and wore a costume on 4 different occasions.

Although our original costumes were Thing 1 & 2 with Kap as the Cat in the Hat,
Jase still hadn't made it back from out of town by the time we were planning on trick or treating.
So, to our backup costume we went: a liddle baby monkey.

Eric cleaned out the wagon, and set Ellie up with a sweet ride.
Body pillow and blankets, comfiest ride in town.
Too bad it didn't even last a full block before we all took turns carrying her ;)

We hit up a couple of neighborhoods,
and Eleanor had no idea what was going on
but she loved being out and about.
And the sucker she got when we made it back to Grandma's wasn't too bad either.

But the real star of the night was ERIC.
He was hilarious.
At one house, they went up to a door with Kap, the people gave Kap some candy and were shutting the door (but had missed Ellie's bag) so Eric held out the bag and said, "Can you say Trick or Treat for me Ellie" LOL.
And on the way back, there was a house with lights on that we didn't get on the way, so he and Kap went up to it (WITHOUT ELLIE!) and got candy,  while Eric told them I have a baby, she's over there.
Oh my gosh.
We made it back to moms and they dumped out the candy and shared and traded.
The two biggest kids!

Was a fun night, and we can't wait for next year when Eleanor will be old enough to say Trick or Treat and walk up to doors with her cousins!















Tuesday, October 29, 2013

random ramblings.

- I have a love/hate feeling about dressing Eleanor as part of a duo for Halloween. Obviously they are so close in age, it will be so cute if they coordinated every year, think of the pictures to look back on! But since we have done a few things this year that Jase didn't attend, it seems kinda silly to have a thing 2 without her thing 1!

-It has been so nice (and a nice change from the dang winter temps we had last week) that we have been spending lots of time outside during the day. She scares the bejeezus out of me when we sit on the porch though, because this girl has no fear and will walk right off the concrete without thinking twice.


- I was at my parent's house all day Sunday and I see my dad soaking his feet in this pan of Listerene, warm water and ...something else I can't remember. He said he saw it on Pinterest and it's supposed to get all the dead skin off your feet. HAHAHA!! Also, my mom told him not to smile like this again because he looks like a chipmunk.
 
 - After Ellie's hair comes out of her ponytail at night, she has the perfect rockabilly Mohawk. :)


- Today for lunch, I decided to let the babies self feed. Chicken nuggets and green beans. Couldn't do more simple than that, right? Except I'm still scraping smushed green beans off the floor and even got some out of her hair!! They ate almost an entire can of green beans together. I def. kept the ketchup on my plate to dip for them. I'm not that brave.



- Today after lunch, E had HUGE red welt/rashed on her thighs and calves. I was freaking. My mom showed the pictures to the school nurse and they said I better take her in. The doctor said it looked like hives and it could be from something she ate or something that touched her. And it also turns out that she has her first ear infection. I had no idea. She hasn't had a fever or runny nose or even pulled at her ear. So sad, but we shared some pumpkin spice ice cream on the way home to soothe ourselves.

-

Monday, October 28, 2013

saturday, busy day.

we had such a fun weekend!
Saturday was our first opportunity for Eleanor to wear her Halloween costume,
twice!

first we headed to the library for a Halloween story time
with liz and brogan.
it was unbelievably PACKED!
we listened to a couple of scary stories, went on a costume parade and pulled all the books off the shelves played with our friends.






after going home and taking a nap,
we were ready for outing #2!
a fall festival at a church just next door to our house.

it didn't start til dark, so it was too dark for many pictures
but ellie did get to go on her first hayride.
she didn't care much for it actually,
had a trembling lip part of the time and fell asleep a bit of the time.
she also got to do some trunk or treating and had a hard time moving to the next car.
can't blame the girl, who wouldn't want more candy!!










also, I don't think it needs to be mentioned how ridiculously hard it is to get a not blurry, everyone looking pictures with babies.
we have a few more Halloween events this week, so we will get plenty of use out of her first handmade costume!
love this time of year.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

party time.

party day!!
my vision for the party was in the backyard,
with a row of games, including pick a duck, ring of fire & bean bag toss.
we watched the weather all week & it was saying the high would be in the low 60s 
with a chance of rain.

and sure enough, when we woke up with thunder and lots of rain.
all day.
i was so disappointed, but we had to scramble onto plan B.
we took Eleanor to my parent's house and got busy.

we were juggling about 500 things ( like the true procrastinaters we are)
- make the cake
-clean the house
- hang the decorations
- stuff the party favor bags
- prep the food for making
-figure out where we were going to put everyone in our little house!
about 1 1/2 before the party, I had to call my mom in for reinforcements.
big thanks to her for going to the store twice for stuff i forgot!!
















the photo booth props were one of my favorite things.
(thanks for my sister to drawing them, my mom painting and my dad cutting out the holes. on the night before the party!)









it didn't come out as planned (and as eric likes to joke I've been planning since Jan)
but we are thankful for our friends and family coming out to celebrate our sweet girl.

Happy Birthday, Eleanor :)