Monday, January 28, 2008

Eleanor is 17 months old!

Eleanor is 17 months old today! She's still in the "say and do the cutest things" stage of her life, and keeps her mommy and daddy laughing all the time!

Here's what else she's doing:
  • Learning how to move in new ways. She turns around and around in a circle for as long you say, "Turn around, turn around..."(or until she falls down!) She's also a fan of "hopping", though her feet never leave the floor.
  • Counting to ten. She likes to count while she's playing in her room, so this is what I hear, "One, twoooo, beee, bor, byyyy, six, beben, eight, nine, TEN!"
  • Reading more and more words every day. She reads about 40 or so now.
  • Obsessing over all things Elmo. She sometimes wakes up in the morning talking about Elmo. She also plops herself down in front of the TV, and says, "Elmo...bibeo...peease." Who could resist that? She sings the Elmo song. (Gotta get that on video.) And always says, "Hi, Dorty," when she sees Elmo's goldfish Dorothy.
  • Learning to use good manners. She often wows cashiers with her sweet little, "Tant-tu" as we're leaving.
  • And finally...understanding the art of bribery when Mommy wants to take her picture. For the photos below, I was bribing her to keep that hat on with these mini-Alphabit cookies. The first two times, I said, "If you want a cookie, you need to keep your hat on." By the third time, she signed "more" and quickly put her hat back on. Such a train-able age!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Who loves to color?

"I do, Mommy!!"

Thursday, January 24, 2008

smart AND sassy

Smart.



And sassy. Be sure and note the head bob and look that accompany her sarcastic answer. I'm SO in for it.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Things I've wanted to blog about...

So, Eleanor has been doing plenty of cute things that I wanted to blog about, but I've been doing something else in my spare time. Brace yourselves...I've been reading. Like an actual book. Two books really. And I really enjoyed them. As soon as I can get my hands on the third book of the series, I'll be reading that too. I feel like such a grown-up. Anyway...

I've made a compilation video of aforementioned 'cute things' and will describe them for you here in this very organized, bulleted list.
  • Eleanor LOVES watching videos of herself. Particularly, she likes watching those videos I made when she first learned to walk, and kept running into the camera. She laughs and laughs no matter how many times she sees them, and keeps asking for "more."
  • It snowed. A lot. It was Eleanor's first snow since she learned how to walk, and she loved it!! She begged to go outside all the time, and cried when we had to come in. She would wake up from her nap saying, "Snoooooow." I was completely unprepared for her to play in the snow, and had no matching snow gear for her. Her little mismatched outfit is hilarious. (I have since remedied this situation by visiting the Children's Place Monster Sale.) Also, I should mention that she does have mittens...I just haven't figured out how to make them stay on.
  • More letter sounds practice. I just like it.
  • One night, we were sitting at the dinner table, and Eleanor kept making these funny faces. I asked her what she was doing, and she pointed at the pot in the center of the table, and said, "Ana-nor." She could see her reflection in the pot, and apparently found herself very amusing. So funny.
  • One night after dinner, I was in the kitchen doing the dishes and Eleanor came toddling in and said in a very excited voice, "Sta, sta!" (star) I asked her what she was talking about, and she said, "Mama...sta...peeese!" So, I followed her into the living room where she pointed out her "sta." It was the neighbor's porch light. How cute is that?! Now, every night after dinner, she goes into the living room to see her "sta." (BONUS: You get to see my spiffy green linoleum kitchen floor)
  • Eleanor started helping me clean the house. (She also uses her Pledge wipe to blow her nose.) Yesterday, she wiped down everything in the entire house with that one wipe. When we were cleaning my room, she stopped, look over at me, cocked her head to the side and said, "I-yuh-you." (I love you) Ahhh....it's good to be the mommy.
  • And, finally, a shout out to the grandparents. She can now identify all of her grandparents by name in pictures without any prompting. Hooray!


Thursday, January 17, 2008

Tractorpalooza!

Seriously, that was the name of the event we went to on Saturday. It was at the Heritage Farm Museum in Sterling. We had so much fun!! There was so much for Eleanor to do, and she was in great spirits, so she had a blast! They're having an Easter event with live bunnies and an Easter Egg Hunt, and we're definitely planning on taking Eleanor to that one too. I think I'll take along my big camera, but for this outing, here's what we managed to get with the little guy.

They have these fake eggs and hens that the kids could play with. They also have a life-size cow that the kids can milk. It really squirts out water. Pretty cool...we're just not there yet.


And they have dress-up stuff for your little farmer. (Which Daddy put on upside-down.)

They have this really cool general store set up with food and other goods that the kids can "buy." They even have an old fashioned cash register that the kids can use to ring each other's stuff up. And then there was a coloring station. Eleanor's first work of art- I was such a proud mommy!


Playing with tractors is definitely not just for boys. Eleanor jumped right in there with her own little John Deere, and was making it go all over the mat. "Brrrrrmmmm!"


"Ba-bab-booo, Daddy!"

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Tadoodles

So, back at Nana's house in Texas, Santa dropped by and brought some Tadoodles for Eleanor's stocking. For those of you who aren't in the position to know (or care) what Tadoodles are...they are big, stubby markers in sort of a triangular shape (like a jumbo piece of candy corn) that are meant to be easy for little ones to hold while they color. Well, I guess they are easy to hold and color...next lesson, the paper. Color on the PAPER.




And afterwards, my little starving artist needed a snack. And with Eleanor, even a little snack is a golden opportunity to put on a show for Mommy.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Too cute

I really can't even begin to adequately describe how much fun Eleanor is these days. She keeps us laughing all the time!! If I could somehow freeze time right now, I would. I mean, I've enjoyed every stage of her life so far, but this "curious, say anything and everything, sing songs, act totally silly for no reason" stage is bringing me loads and loads of joy. I tear up lots of times every day at how happy and blessed I am to be Eleanor's mommy.

Here are just a few of the things she says that totally crack us up...

  • When we finish praying at the dinner table or at bedtime, we say, "Amen." She always follows up with, "El-mo."
  • When she sees something exciting, she says, "Ooooooooooh!" Like, when we raise her shade in the morning and she sees the sun shining (not to say that the sun is always up when the kiddo wakes), she greets it with, "Oooooooooh!"
  • She's started telling things bye-bye. When she gets out of the bathtub..."Bye-bye, bubbles." When we're in the car, and a bus drives by..."Bye-bye, bus."
  • A video is now called, "Bib-e-o." She tries to put the DVDs in by herself. She even tried to put one in the video monitor.
  • Every night, I give Eleanor one of those chewy vitamin supplements. So, some time after she has her pajamas on, she'll walk into the kitchen, point to the vitamins, and say, "Mi-min, Mi-min."

She has also started singing several different songs. This one is her favorite, and she spontaneously bursts out with this one all day long...





And then there's this...



So, she may not know exactly what that means...doesn't matter...still melts mine and her daddy's hearts.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

A reading update

So, I think my theory about my child is that she has a photographic memory, or something very close to it. She can read some words after only seeing them once. I sat down and wrote a list of all of the words I could think of that she can read. I discover new words that she knows ever day just by trying them out. Today, I found out she can read, "airplane." What in the world?!

Here's the list:
Eleanor, Daddy, Mommy, table, cup, up, ball, purple, apple, banana, fox, cat, dog, bubble, bear, baby, doll, bee, owl, airplane, mirror, snow, eye, yellow, happy, grass, key, pig, fish, water, bowl.

I can't get a video of her reading all of them because (as you'll see), she gets sort of impatient with my turn to write on the MagnaDoodle and wants her own turn. If we use flashcards, she insists on holding them all, and ends up crunching them all up.

You'll probably have to turn your volume way up to hear her. And you'll have to look really quickly to see some of the words, as my cameraman didn't quite get them. :)

Monday, January 7, 2008

Our trip, Part 1.2

While in Houston, we visited our friends Amanda and Corbin and their kiddos, Alli and Josh. Josh is just about a month older than Eleanor.

The big kids decorated cookies while Josh and Eleanor chowed down on graham crackers. Here are some pics from the fun afternoon at Amanda's.





Friday, January 4, 2008

Our trip, part 1

We spent the first few days of our Texas vacation in Houston with my awesome friend Ashley and her family. We had such a great time, and it felt like we had never left. I also enjoyed stuffing my face with my favorite Houston foods- Lupe Tortilla, Star Pizza, and Jason's Deli. Yum. Why don't they have Jason's Deli in northern Virginia anyway??

Ashley's little one, Megan, decided to be my little model, which was much more fun (and easier!) than chasing my little punkin' all over the place with the camera. She kept posing and saying, "Miss Megan, now take my picture. Okay, let me see." So cute. The "big kids" (Kelsey and Jake) indulged me with a few photos as well. You can see how all of our kiddos looked during our last visit by clicking here.

We miss you guys!!









Tuesday, January 1, 2008

We're back

Well, here we are! We're back home from our wonderful holiday in Texas. We had so much fun visiting with family and friends. And, I'm sure it goes without saying, we ate a whole lot of delicious food. I haven't edited (or even looked at) any Christmas pictures, but I'm sure they'll get posted some time soon. In the meantime...

Eleanor turned sixteen months! She makes us smile and laugh more and more everyday! Here are some things she's up to:

  • Walking ALL over the place! She's getting very fast and even more curious about anything and everything she can reach!
  • Talking like crazy! She can repeat almost anything we say (which is sometimes not that great!) She busts out with the most random words, and totally shocks us several times a day. I need to do a post soon about things she says that make us laugh, so that I'll never, ever forget them!
  • Trying to do the motions to a few favorite songs.
  • Saying, "Mommy." (My very favorite thing ever!!!!!)
  • Expressing great excitement about all things related to Elmo.
  • Telling me what she wants to eat, which is usually not whatever I give her, and is almost always, "Ca-kkkkaa." (cracker)

Here's a little video of a few of my favorite things...