Friday, August 29, 2008

"Dat's SIH-WY!"

That's what Eleanor says when she find something particularly funny or when she's trying to make a joke. And here's some more of her hilarity:

  • She calls toothbrushes "bwush-a-teeth." Like, "Dat's Mommy's bwush-a-teeth and that's El-nor's bwush-a-teeth."
  • Today, while I was in the bath tub, Eleanor came walking into the bathroom holding my bra up to her chest, and said, "I getting dwessed, Mommy."
  • This might only be funny if you watch "The Office"...Jared has a Dwight bobble-head on his nightstand (just temporarily displaced from his desk at work), and I taught Eleanor to say "Dwight SCHWUUUTE!" She likes playing, "Keek-i-boo" with Dwight. "Dwight SCHWUUTE? Ah you?"
  • Today, she asked to go "poo-poo on the potty," so I put her on the big potty on her Elmo seat and she went. Her reaction was, "Uh-oh! Dropped it!"
  • Tonight, when we were watching "Wheel Portune," she walked over to the TV, pointed to the category for the puzzle, and said, "WOOK! It's a phrase!!"

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Eleanor is T-W-O!


Our little peanut is the big 0-2! The last two years have been the most amazing of our lives, and she has brought us more happiness than we ever thought possible. We can't wait to see what the next 100 years have in store for the three of us!

Here are some things little Missy is up to:
  • She has finally come to the conclusion that hair-washing and tooth-brushing will not kill her. While I wouldn't call them pleasant experiences, we're definitely making a lot of progress on both.
  • Enjoying eating foods with extreme tastes. Our little girl can put away an entire bowl of hot sauce, and asks for more when it's gone. She also enjoys eating lemons, which is handy for us when we want to enjoy ourselves at a restaurant. She'll sit so quietly and eat lemon after lemon until her dinner comes.
  • Reading everything.
  • Sleeping until about 6:45AM, which works so much better for me than 5:20. That craziness went on for months, and I'm glad that we're taking a break from that now.
  • Pretending more and more all the time. Sometimes, nobody knows what in the world she's talking about but her. She'll occasionally become frustrated by our ignorance and say, "I 'tending, Mommy!!"

We love you so much, punkin'!!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Chloe

My precious little niece. This little girl has more energy than any single person I've ever met, and I LOVE it!! She's so much fun to be around, and I'm lucky enough to have her (and her mommy) here for six more days!! Woo-hoo!

And I just have to brag for a minute by telling you that our forty minute photo session (for which I kidnapped her early this morning) yielded twenty good shots...a major progression for us since, after two sessions last November, we were lucky to come up with one shot for my sister's Christmas card!






Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Gone.

Jared is officially gone. And I am officially sad. :(

We're planning on heading to Texas sooner than I had originally planned. I can't stand being sad AND having anxiety about the big move, so I'd rather just get it done. So much still to do before we leave...

In other news, we had Eleanor's 2-year check-up today. The main topic of conversation was her reading, which the doctor seems to be extremely interested in. Eleanor did read for her at her 18-month check-up, but I was worried that this time she wouldn't be as willing to perform. But, I was wrong, and with two doctors looking on, Eleanor read, "I see a yellow helicopter flying high in the sky," which I had written on the exam table paper. They were impressed, and the old one said he had only seen two true kid geniuses in his whole career, but that now he had seen three. They are still encouraging me to have her "tested," and they gave me a phone number of someone to call in Texas. Surprisingly, they seemed pleased when I told them that we had planned all along to homeschool Eleanor. One of the doctors remarked that homeschooling is the best thing we could do for her.

She is still measuring in the 25th percentile for height (33 in.) She went down in weight percentile, and is now in the 40th at 26 pounds. Her head is still very large, but is in the 75th percentile instead of the 95th. Maybe she's losing some of her brains!?! :)

I have not picked up my camera in almost a week, but I'm hoping to do some portraits of little Miss Chloe in the morning.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

The birthday party

Today was the big party day! It really couldn't have gone any better. Everyone had a blast! Eleanor went to bed still talking about the candles and the singing and, of course, the CAKE!

Robin was awesome enough to take pictures for us, so I didn't have to stress about it. She even took some family photos for us, which was something I've been dying to have done. Thanks so much, Robin!!

Eleanor's friend, Ava.


Daddy helping with craft time.

The cake, which I bought at Costco, and decorated with my sister yesterday.

Blowing out the candles. I was there too, but, unfortunately, I made a pretty poor shirt choice, and we got some awesome shots of my breasts. Oops.

Okay, there were a lot of other kids there, I promise. But I have to cut the pictures off somewhere! :)

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Girls' weekend!

So, I have recently been BEYOND stressed!! This weekend, I took a much-needed, total mental break.

Laura and I got up early Saturday morning, and drove to Ocean City, MD. We spent the biggest part of the day relaxing and reading gossip magazines while basking in the sun on the beach. Then, we went out for an awesome dinner, which was followed by hours of hanging out at a karaoke bar and laughing at all of the people humiliating themselves. We were very close to humiliating ourselves by having a go at singing on stage, but had to leave abruptly when some guy offered to buy us drinks. (We strategically ducked out while he was at the bar. We're mommies for Pete's sake!!!)

We had the MOST AMAZING time!!! (Remember when we went last year?) This is becoming an annual event for us...next year, we're pushing for two nights!

As we approached Northern Virginia this afternoon on the drive home, I could feel the stress creeping back in. BUT, I was so surprised and happy to return to a picked-up house, happy baby, completely done laundry, a new watch (to replace the one I lost last week!), and a hottie of a husband who missed me like crazy! Love that guy!!

Monday, August 11, 2008

'God is real!'

So, this may be my favorite home video of all time. Eleanor was being uncharacteristically cooperative with my video-recording, so I managed to capture a few of my very favorite things. My very, very favorite is 'God is real!' which she learned today at VBS. Melts my little Mommy heart into a pile of mushy goo.

Hash browns

Eleanor absolutely LOVES hash browns, especially ones from McDonald's. She will eat any fast food hash browns, but refuses to eat the frozen kind you bake yourself. (It must be because those aren't dripping with grease.) Occasionally, if we are out in the morning, I will run through a drive-thru, and pick up a hash brown for her. In fact, if we ever go through a drive-thru, she shouts out her order when we get to the speaker, 'Hash browns, PEASE!' no matter what time of day it is.

On Friday, we were headed out for playgroup. I thought I would run through McDonald's since Eleanor had refused to eat (as she does almost every day) whatever I had made her for breakfast. In an effort to keep the greasiness of the backseat of the car to a minimum, I gave her the hash brown in the paper. Moments later, I heard what sounded like paper being eaten, reached in the backseat, and Eleanor handed me this...

It was in fact, paper that had been eaten. She had been eating the hash brown and the paper at the same time. Oops.

And that, my friends, is Mommy Mistake #8006, to be followed another tomorrow, I'm sure.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Top four

I just posted this over at the photo blog, but I wanted to put it here too because it's much more personal than business.

So, here they are, the top four reasons I'm going to miss Virginia like crazy when I leave...

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Friday, August 8, 2008

Before anyone forgets how cute she is...

So, it's been days since any decent pictures of Eleanor have graced the blog. I've just been uninspired as far as taking pictures of my own kid goes. Well, yesterday, the most adorable little t-shirt ever arrived in the mail for Eleanor's birthday from my friend Ashley, who I have mentioned before just plain ROCKS! So, I combined that t-shirt with some cowboy boots that Ashley sent, a shirt we are borrowing from Laura, and the skirt Uncle Shane and Aunt Casey gave Eleanor for her birthday last year (yes, it still fits, and probably will for another couple of seasons.) Have you noticed I never buy any of Eleanor's clothes myself?! We are SO blessed!!

Back out to my neighbor's awesome old trucks and voila! Here is the cutest-little-almost-two-year-old-urban-cowgirl ever.

And this is the grin that gets her out of trouble in 0.02 seconds flat...

There's something I love about this next one...I think it's that tiny hiney in that denim skirt!





And she just randomly decided to bust a move while singing the ABC song. Hilarious!

My favorite.


After all of that great posing, I had to let her drive the truck, of course. She kept saying, 'I dwive da truck, pease?'

Sunday, August 3, 2008

What we're doing...

So, I feel like not blogging would be lame, but there's not anything terribly blog-worthy going on here. How about a list of randomness?? Okay!

Eleanor is getting her molars. No one in our house is getting a normal amount of sleep. This comes up a lot on this blog, but it has been the same thing with EVERY tooth...runny nose, diarrhea, diaper rash, not eating, not sleeping. BUT, there's a light at the end of the tunnel...only four more stinkin' teeth to go!!!

I shipped our fall and winter clothes to Texas. I went to one of those Pack n Mail stores (lugged all 50 pounds of clothes and my 26 pound kid inside) where the silly little man told me it would cost 133 dollars to ship my things to Texas. I promptly laughed in his face (lugged all 50 pounds of clothes and my 26 pound kid back out to the car) and drove to the post office, where I shipped my things for 50 bucks.

I have had three photo shoots in the past two weeks which have gone extremely well. (That judgment is based on the fact that the mommies and daddies were happy.) I'm so glad my business is taking off...oh, wait...now I'm taking off too...back to square one when I get to Texas. Yay.

Jared and I have been going to lots of appointments to try to get all fixed up before our time away. I have had two dentist appointments and have two more to go. Love that. We met with our life insurance lady who found us to be very un-amusing. For every time she used the phrase 'when you pass away,' we made some comment that made us laugh, but made her stare blankly at us as if we were the most juvenile couple ever to sit down in her office. We also went to the eye doctor where Eleanor (very uncharacteristically) wreaked complete havoc and we were both told we have some sort of eye disease. We each had to buy some fifty dollar prescription eye drops, and we have to go back in five days. Nice. I wasn't doing anything else in five days...really.

I'm teaching Vacation Bible School in a week, and I am completely unprepared. I'm supposed to decorate my room next Sunday after church, but have not one single thing to decorate with. If anyone has any beachy/islandy decorations, could you drop them in the mail? It will probably only cost you 133 bucks.

Jared and I went on the best date ever last night, courtesy of our friends Matt and Laura who gave us a very generous gift certificate to an amazing restaurant. (Laura came over after Eleanor was in bed and held down the fort.) The atmosphere was so fun and the food was unbelievable! It was one of those places where you just leisurely go about your meal and it ends up taking two hours or so. We think it was our best date in like five years. So great!

I taught Eleanor a fun new phrase. When she wants Jared to hurry up and do something she says, 'Hey, Daddy...bwing it!' Hilarious.

My sister and niece are coming in 17 days!! We can't wait!!