First snow! (well, this winter anyway)

So, today we woke up to huge, beautiful snowflakes falling silently to the ground. We were so excited, and couldn't wait to get the girls outside for a snowy picture-taking frenzy! This was Chloe's first snow, and Eleanor's second, but her first as a big girl and first at the new house. We only kept them out for a minute, but managed to get a few cute shots.

Also, I just have to mention that Eleanor's spiffy new pink and brown coat was the deal of the century! I got it last night at H&M for 12 dollars and 45 cents. And, of course, I think she looks totally adorable in it!





AND I thought it would be really funny to cram Eleanor into last year's snowsuit (which I was so right about) and do a little reenactment from her first official snow. I think the new one looks like she was writing the words with her little, frozen finger. This is for you, Daddy.

More reading fun

So, what I'm finding out is that Eleanor can read some words that she cannot say. I had a hunch she could pick out color words even though she can really only say "purple" and something that sounds sort of like "yellow." (Click here if you haven't seen Eleanor's first reading video, and have no idea what I'm talking about.)

I keep having to cut my videos down to keep them under the 100 MB limit since my video camera records in HD and the files are huge. I accidentally cut off the beginning of this one where I asked her to find "blue." There was also a cute ending involving clapping and cheering, but that had to go too.



And here's a picture that I LOVE of her enjoying her sweet new freedom. I think I'll be very sad when she learns to walk without her arms flailing about.

Eleanor is 15 months old!

Well, somehow amongst our other big announcements (which you can find here and here), I forgot to mention that Eleanor turned 15 months. Here are some things she's up to (as if you don't already know):

• Making letter sounds. She's up to 13 now, and likes to point them out EVERYWHERE- books, magazines, newspapers, the sides of trucks in traffic, etc.
• Reading some words. Not sure how this happened, and I'm still investigating the extent of her reading ability.
• WALKING!!
• Saying new words every day. I tried counting the words in her vocabulary, and I think it's somewhere just over 50 or so. She has even put some words into "sentences." Her first "sentence" was, 'Mama apple.' And her third was, 'Ba-bo all done.' ("Ba-bo" means video, but was not included as a real word in the word count.)
• Pretending to eat her food when she's at the table so that I will leave her alone about it. I would video it as it's quite hilarious, but I'm trying not to encourage it. :)
• Making anyone who looks like they can read open her books and read them to her. She knows how to sign "please", and does it when she hands you the book. Who could possibly resist that??

I guess that about sums it up. It's been a busy month, and we have loved every second of having our company here to enjoy new milestones with us! We won't know what to do when they leave next week!! :(

I have an announcement...

After 8 long months of cruising along the furniture and 5 long months of crawling around....Eleanor is finally walking!!!!!!

I'm so excited...I feel like I won the lottery or something. I can't believe it just happened so suddenly!



Be sure to see the video below (if you haven't already) of something else new and exciting she can do!

My baby can read

So, I discovered today that Eleanor can read. It went down something like this...

I was sitting in the (parked) car trying very hard to entertain her, so I whipped out the mini-magnadoodle, and began playing her new favorite game. That game consists of me writing letters on the magnadoodle, and her telling me what sound they make. She's up to 11 letter sounds now. She would rather do this little pop quiz all day than play with any of her toys. Anyway, I decided to write down a word and see what she would do. I wrote, "apple." I showed it to her, and she quickly said, "Apple." I thought it must have been a coincidence, so I wrote down, "ball." I showed it to her, and she said, "Ball." I was shocked. My sister returned to the car, and I showed her a replay of what had just happened. She was shocked too. We started driving, and my sister wrote down a few more words (doll, purple, and dog), which Eleanor read. I discovered a couple of more words she can read once we got home- baby and banana. I'm not sure how many other words she can read, but I'm definitely on a mission to find out.

Gingerpeople revealed

Well, I'm glad to see that our creativity and paper-cutting talents were not wasted.

Thanks to Robin, Jessica, and Casey for playing my silly game!!

The true identities of our fine-looking ginger crew are:

1. Justin Timberlake (who has apparently stopped wearing ball caps over one eye as I cannot find a picture anywhere of such a thing)
2. Dwight K. Schrute
3. Macy Gray
and, of course
4. President Abraham Lincoln

Seriously, if you have to click on the Wikipedia link to take a look at Abraham Lincoln, I'm turning you in to the US citizenship police.

A little holiday fun

So, my sister had this really fun holiday craft idea- making gingerbread men (and women) to hang in my dining room window. Well, one thing led to another, and before we knew it, this little project had gone in a completely different direction than we had originally anticipated. We ended up making the gingerpeople into celebrity look-alikes, which made for lots of hardy laughter (the kind that can be dangerous while you are wielding the grown-up scissors).

I thought it would be fun to post our little friends, and have you all guess who they are supposed to be. I'll even give you a few little helpful hints (mostly so that our feelings don't get hurt when no one can decipher our creative renderings). You just post your guesses as a comment, and in a couple of days, I'll reveal the true identities of these cooky cookies.

First, a couple of future celebrities...

Future Eleanor

Future Chloe

1. Not a jockey. A singer.

2. Not Harry Potter or Drew Carey. A television show character.

3. Another singer. Her name and Eleanor's name have something in common.

4. Um, duh. It's just un-American if you can't tell who this is.