Eleanor is 11 months old!

So, I guess the big countdown to her first birthday starts now. I think I might cry every day from now until then. How did my tiny baby turn into this big girl? Well, at least she's absolutely adorable...

Here's what she's up to...

• Crawling everywhere, pulling up on everything, and trying to get anything that looks dangerous.
• Talking all the time- some of the time in English, but most of the time in Eleanor-ese.
• Clapping and waving every time anyone looks her way.
• Standing in her crib and throwing her pacie out when she wakes up. She used to call for us to come get it in the middle of the night, so I started putting four pacies in her bed. If she loses all of the them...well, let's just say we're not getting up to get them anymore.
• Feeding herself anything that will fit into her mouth. (Unfortunately, this includes crumbs from the floor, lint, dust bunnies, etc.)

Eleanor is really becoming quite the little entertainer, and keeps us smiling and laughing all the time! We sure love our sweet baby girl!

I am a working Mom

Well...sort of...


I'm watching my friend Melissa's baby Kathryn two days a week at my house. It's really a win-win situation. Kathryn gets two days doing something besides her regular daycare, Eleanor has an all-day playdate, and I get a little extra cash (which is totally necessary now to pay our big, fat mortgage!) The first day was yesterday, and I think it went really well. The girls are almost exactly a month apart, and they seem to really enjoy playing together- when they're not snatching toys away from each other. (They always make up afterwards.)

And now for a couple more rooms...first, Eleanor's playroom in the basement...(sorry, no befores)...







And the dining room...

Before

After

The living room

Thanks for the nice comments about Eleanor's room. I have to admit we were very happy with the way it turned out. And, yes, those beautiful hardwoods were hiding beneath old, smelly, disgusting carpet. What were those people thinking??

Here's the living room. We still have a few little things to do, but it's mostly finished...

Before

After

TA-DAH...

Finally, some pictures to show off all our hard work. I have seriously never worked this hard in my entire life. Manual labor would not be my job of choice...but the payoff has been huge! Here are some before and afters of Eleanor's new room. I think the next closest-to-complete room is the living room, so maybe there will be photos of that soon.

Before: The Blue Nightmare

After: Sweet Dreams, Eleanor

Hey...how'd she get in there??!!!

Non-house pictures

Still no pictures of the house. Yet. I'm waiting for just the right moment to put down my hammer/pliers/paintbrush/screwdriver, etc. and pick up my camera. It just hasn't happened yet.

I did, however, have a mini panic attack when I thought of all the blank spaces in Eleanor's photo album just waiting to be filled, and how I hadn't really taken any pictures of my baby girl's tenth month, and how she might never forgive me when she's grown and sees my omission...

...I took these pictures of her eating today...

And then she got clean...

8 random things...sort of

Okay, so I was tagged by Wendy and Kristen to do an 8 random facts meme. I would love to ladies, but my brain is totally fried as I am suffering from serious exhaustion. So, I decided to post 8 random tidbits about the past week instead.

• I have had paint covering roughly 25% of my body since last Friday.


• We sleep on an air mattress on our new living room floor. For the first three nights, Eleanor slept beside us in her crib. We got to wake up every morning to her peering down at us saying, "HEY! HEY!" Thank goodness hers was the first room done. She now resides in the only room in the house with furniture.


• She learned to stand up in her bed, which has turned bedtime into somewhat of a disaster. As I'm typing, I can hear her jumping up and down shouting, "Mama! Mama!"


• I cut my toe open on our refrigerator on the second night here. I'm pretty sure I should have gotten stitches, but I didn't feel like wasting valuable home improvement time. It still hurts when I put socks on.


• My husband is the handiest scientist in the world. Seriously, who knew someone so nerdy could be so good with their hands? Just kidding. But really, he has done things to this house I had no idea he could do. He's one handy hottie. Wait...I think he needs his own show on the DIY Network.


• My friend Ashley (who is visiting from Houston) can remove wallpaper faster and more effectively than anyone I've ever seen. She had this house wallpaper-free about two and a half days after her arrival. Goodbye, yellow and brown forest in my dining room...and living room...and hallway.


• There is a black mouse living in our basement. I haven't actually seen him. Ashley saw him while she was doing her laundry. We put out traps to try and catch him, but I'm pretty sure he has left the area. Good thing. He wasn't invited in the first place. Rude, little mouse.


• I think I'm going to be a plumber when I go back to work. Who else gets to charge $145 for ten minutes worth of work?!

So, that's it. A quick update on our week.

Eleanor's room is almost ready for showing off. As soon as I get her changing table over here, her room will be complete. I can't wait for you all to see it!