Trick or treat

Tonight, we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with our friends Jordan and Cyrus (and their mommy Laura, of course.) I'm not sure Eleanor got a whole lot out of the experience, but she was a little trooper. Jordan (the BIRTHDAY girl!) enjoyed knocking on the doors and prancing around in her beautiful wings.

"Hey, Men-yan, we're not ready yet!"

"Am I flying yet??"

And check out this little punkin'...

Happy Halloween!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!!

Hooked on phonics

Sometimes, I really miss teaching kids to read, so this is how I get my kicks...

And just FYI...so many of our videos take place in the bathtub because that's one of the few places where Eleanor won't immediately try and attack the camera!

My little monkey

When we first bought our house, I mentioned that there was a park right behind the back yard. It's so close to us, and we go so often, that I'm pretty sure Eleanor thinks it is our back yard. Before this week (when we got a LOT of rain), we had gone to the park everyday for about two weeks. Eleanor has even learned the words rock ("rah-rah") and shovel ("sh-blllll") because she spends so much time playing in the gravel pit.

Eleanor's new favorite thing to do at the park is to climb EVERYTHING. She climbs up the slides, and slides back down over and over- sometimes until her little face turns red and she starts sweating. She also loves climbing up and down the equipment that has stairs. She really has no clue that she's in the way of all the big kids who are running around, and most of them are very careful around her.

Here are some pictures of her being a little monkey on Tuesday before the rain came. (Oh, and check out those super cool pants- another gift from our blogger friend Wendy.)

What ever will we do when winter comes???

Check this out!!

So, today I did the least expensive, quickest home improvement project yet, and I'm so excited about it!

We had done everything on the fireplace except for replacing the brass door, which we weren't going to do anytime soon because they cost about 250 bucks.

SO, this morning I went to Lowe's and bought a five dollar can of Rustoleum spray paint in hammered nickel and painted away. And I think it looks great! You gotta love saving over two hundred bucks by doing something so simple!!

Some cute videos...FINALLY!

Blogger and I were having a heated argument for two days about whether or not I was going to get to post these videos. I won. But I'm still bitter about how long it took.

This is what happens when you don't like the way a balloon feels, but you really want to hold it...

Taking a BUB-ble bath...

Silly after a nap...

Okay, Blogger, I forgive you...

These are a few of my favorite things...

Today, I decided not to torture Eleanor by making her sit and pose so that I could have fun taking pictures. I thought I'd take a few (uh-hum) pictures of things she likes to do. So, here they are.

Eleanor loves to...

...talk on her Elmo phone. She holds it up to her ear and says, "Oh."

(I think that's supposed to mean hello.)

...work at becoming a virtuoso.

...and dance like a maniac to the songs she plays.
...learn the ABC's in her school bus.

"Look, lady, I said sit down, so I can drive this thing!"

...make silly faces.
...and climb like a mountain goat.

...contemplate the meaning of pieces of plastic fruit.

...read books. (And try to climb onto the table like aforementioned mountain goat.)

...play with her babies. She gives them lots of hugs and kisses like a good little mommy,

unless they have a dirty diaper.

A little taste of spring

My super sweet sister Jennifer and her precious baby Chloe sent me flowers on Wednesday. They're absolutely gorgeous, and every time I walk through the kitchen, I smile. Eleanor loves them too, and says, "Wow!" whenever she sits down at the table.

Thanks again, Sister!! You're the best!

A post by Eleanor

10 Things I Want my Mom to Know Now that I'm Becoming a Toddler

by: Eleanor Macy Hudson

• The official motto for toddlerhood is: "I want to do it by myself, even though I don't know how." (But you need to help me when I get frustrated, and make me think I did it all by myself.)
• Whatever you're eating or drinking looks a million times better than whatever I'm eating or drinking (even if it's the exact same thing), and I need to try some of it. I will let you know if I don't like it by making a horrible face like you are trying to poison me, and throwing it on the floor.
• Walking up stairs will now take longer. Deal with it. I need to go up by myself. If you try to carry me up, I will kick and scream and possibly seriously injure one or both of us.
• I will let you know when I am ready to get up from the table by suddenly launching into a shrieking fit at the top of my lungs. Even though this hasn't worked so far, and you leave me in my chair until I say, "Ah-doh," (all done), I will continue to try it.
• We will listen to my music in the car from now on. If you try to switch the radio to your "adult" radio station, I will fuss until I hear the sound of little childrens' voices bellowing out good ol' Sunday School favorites.
• I don't want to have my diaper changed. Ever. That is why I kick and scream at you when you dare lay me down on the changing table. The smell of a dirty diaper doesn't bother me. If it does bother you, I suggest you try and remedy that situation yourself.
• I will be brushing my own hair from now on. I don't care how it looks when I'm finished, I'm really cute as I rub the brush all over my head, saying, "Ooooh-oh."
• Bathtime will not be any fun for me until you allow me to stand up and run all over the tub like a maniac. Why would they put that slide at the back of the tub if they didn't intend for me to use it? I would also like to hold the grown-up soap and the razor.
• The harder you try to put something out of my reach, the harder I will try to get it.

And the very last thing I need you to know so that we can both survive toddlerhood is:

• Even though I'm not a baby anymore, I still need just as many hugs and kisses and snuggles as I did when I was little. (Just not in front of my friends.)

How 'bout them apples?

Here is a video of Eleanor eating an apple. It cracks me up because she only has three teeth (the third arriving just yesterday), but she just gnaws away at that thing like she's been eating apples all her life. When we played back this video on the camera afterwards (which is her very favorite thing to do), she kept saying, "Mmmmm" as she watched herself munching away. The video gets a little slow in the middle, but I promise there's a great ending, so just keep watching!

And here's a video of Eleanor giving her puppy a very sweet hug. I wish I would have been on the other side, so you could see her face when she does it. She gets this very sweet look as she says, "Ohhhhh-oh." These are the same hugs she gives me that make me melt. I like to think of them as my paycheck.

Fall festival

I'm counting today as the third day of Fall. There have only been three days so far when it wouldn't have been appropriate to wear shorts. I've been waiting and waiting to bust out all of Eleanor's new fall clothes since September when Fall was supposed to start. And now it's finally here! Woo-hoo! I think God created Fall so that He could really knock us over by changing the leaves to beautiful colors and sending AMAZING weather.

Today, Eleanor and I met my friend Melissa and her baby Kathryn (whom I used to babysit two days a week) at a Fall festival. Every weekend there are at least twenty Fall festivals to choose from. We go with the cheapest one. This festival was at a flower farm (and I had a coupon). I guess a "flower farm" is the same thing as a nursery, but it was called Layng's Flower Farm, so we'll just go with that.

It was a lot of fun! We went on a hayride, ate all-you-can-eat free popcorn, went down a huge hill slide, looked at pigs and ducks, and, of course, saw, touched, smelled, licked, and sang songs about APPLES! Eleanor's fascination with apples gets more and more intense by the day. She was climbing over all sorts of baskets and figurines to get to the wonderful, beautiful, glorious APPLES! I think we could have paid our $3.50 and hung out by the apple barrels the whole time, and she would have thought the trip was a blast. It's really very funny. I have at least ten APPLE! stories running through my head right now, but we'll move on...

Eleanor had a lot of firsts today, including going in a Moonbounce. She actually really liked it, which totally surprised me because the kid is scared of anything that may be remotely fun and exciting. She marched (crawled) right in there, and took over the Moonbounce, though. Such a brave girl! Her other big first today was eating a lollipop. I'm trying to get her ready for Halloween when I'm going to let her eat all of her candy in one night. Right. She might be wearing the costume, but Mommy's doing all the candy-eating in this house.

The big girl chair

So, sometimes when Eleanor wants to tell me she's unhappy with something, she goes on a hunger strike until I figure out what it is. This week, she did her very best little Gandhi impression and ate next to nothing for two days. Instead of eating at the table, she would whine and cry and scream at the top of her lungs all the way through mealtime. Well, last night, I noticed that the screaming started just as I was putting her in her high chair. So, being the smart mom that I am (seriously, this took me two whole days to figure out), I thought, "Hmmm, perhaps she doesn't like sitting in the high chair anymore." I recalled this post over at 3 Carrs that I had seen last week, and thought I'd give the booster seat (yet another hand-me-down from my awesome friend Ashley) a try. Immediate success!! Eleanor LOVED it! There were no tears, AND she ate like a champ- half an avocado, mandarin oranges, and green beans.

The booster seat is actually on top of a very large phonebook due to the fact that my child has apparently reached her maximum height at twenty-eight and a quarter inches and couldn't see the table from her new seat.

Here are some pictures of my little babydoll enjoying her delicious Soynut Butter sandwich at lunchtime.

Baaaaa

Here's a quick little video of Eleanor's latest animal sound. It was originally over two minutes and included her showing me a cow and saying, "BOOOOOOO" and a pig and saying, "Pi-eeeeee", but this is definitely the cutest part.

Hmmm....maybe we spend too much time talking about animals.

A visit to the bapple farm

We made a little trek over to the Crooked Run Orchard today to pick some apples. Okay, I really had no intention of picking apples- I just had visions of great photo ops dancing around inside my head. I would have bought apples if they just happened to take Visa or Mastercard, but I did not make a special trip to the ATM for this little venture. My neighbor has an apple tree, and lets me have all the apples I want for nada.

Anyway, Eleanor was pleased to see the apples, but was more focused on drinking juice from her friend Jordan's cup. All kinds of crying ensued when I wouldn't let her. Laura was so sweet, and even let me pour some of Jordan's juice into Eleanor's cup. Did that work? Well, of course not. It was clearly the blue Nemo cup she was after- not the juice. We finally just gave up and let her have the darn thing for the wagon ride back to the car.

Somehow between Eleanor's little mini-tantrums, I did manage to take some pictures.

Storytime with Eleanor

Here is a super cute video that I recorded yesterday of Eleanor "reading" her favorite book. I tried to shorten it by cutting out some parts and dividing it into two videos. If you don't have time to watch both videos, watch the second one. I LOVE when she finds the kitty!

In the first video, you can hear her very clearly say, "Ba-na-na" at the beginning. Daddy can't deny it this time!

You'll also see that she calls an apple "bapple," which I, of course, think is adorable. She has very recently become obsessed with "bapples." Tonight, she was super grouchy, so I let her carry around a "bapple" after dinner. Not the smartest move. I literally thought we were going to have to put her to bed with an apple. Tomorrow, we're going to a pick-your-own apple orchard (which was scheduled before the apple obsession became so evident), and I'm expecting she'll be in Bapple Heaven.

Oh, and by the way, we're making progress on the walking thing, I think. Yesterday, at Chick-Fil-A, Eleanor took two steps (sort of- it looked more like she was falling from the slide to the bench) and today she stood for long periods of time all by herself. She still seems pretty scared, so I wouldn't be surprised if she waits a while before taking off.

The hairdo

So, I guess I was wrong about the Pebbles 'do on Eleanor. I thought it looked very silly, but her daddy thought it was adorable. The more I look at the pictures, the more it grows on me. Maybe I just wasn't used to it. Thanks for your sweet comments.

PS- Sir Mousey's body is now in it's final resting place- the Loudon County Landfill. He went out with the garbage this morning, and I spent over an hour disinfecting each and every one of Eleanor's toys.

And because I want to erase the disgusting image of Sir Mousey from your heads, here are some pictures I took of Eleanor last week. I don't know where she learned this behavior...



(Mimi, did this Elmo phone come with Bluetooth?)

Sir Mousey McMouserson

UPDATE!!! I'm sorry to inform you (not really) that Sir Mousey the shrew has expired. He died this evening under the bowl under the case of green beans under the case of corn. May he rest in peace, and may this serve as a warning to all the other little shrews out there looking to get in on a little Meow Mix action.

When we first moved into this place, and my friend Ashley was here for a visit, she had the misfortune to have the very first encounter with our little, black rodent friend, whom I like to call Sir Mousey McMouserson.

No one had seen or heard from Sir Mousey until this past Saturday. On that very special morning, he decided to join Eleanor and me in the playroom. I only noticed him because he was being heavily pursued by our very own Miss Lippy. He apparently ran under the door and into the basement bathroom as that is where Miss Lippy posted herself for the next two days. I made a request that my very brave husband enter said bathroom and place a mousetrap, to which he so kindly obliged. However, Sir Mousey was too smart and cunning to fall into such a primitive trap.

This morning, Sir Mousey decided to be very brave, and show himself to Eleanor and me in the playroom once again. (Perhaps he was less than pleased with the very loud, very high-pitched greeting he received the first time.) He concealed himself in a small hole in the wall that the previous owners had used to, shall we say, "rig up" their cable (really classy), and his little nose was portruding into the room sniffing around. One of the least pleasant things I have ever incurred really. I decided that I should capture Sir Mousey McMouserson once and for all, so as not to be bothered by him again.

I began my hunt with a small tupperware container and a piece of cheese, but Sir Mousey wouldn't come out of hiding. I decided to return upstairs to retrieve a much larger container, so as to avoid any contact with Sir Mousey for fear that touching him may make me vomit profusely. I obtained a very large glass bowl (some more cheese and a broom). I scurried back downstairs only to find that Sir Mousey had apparently changed locations as my ferocious felines (who proved themselves to be quite worthless throughout this saga) were now gathered around the storage room door. I placed some cheese along the bottom of the door, and waited for Sir Mousey to appear. He did not. That clever little mouse could not be fooled.

So, I had to devise another plan. What could I place at the door that would surely lure Sir Mousey out? Well, it seemed that he had enjoyed feasting on the delicious delicacy "Meow Mix" for the past couple of months, so why not give that a try? I placed a few kernels of cat food along the door, and after a very short time heard the unmistakably disgusting sound of a little mouse scurrying about in excitement.

The outcome was this...



Sir Mousey McMouserson captured at last.

I'm not sure what the future holds for Sir Mousey, but I am certain that it in no way involves me or Eleanor or our house.