More Winter Adventures

With no snow and not much sunshine, we need other ways to have fun. This was fun until clean up time and trying to clean Eleanor. This project did end up becoming some fabulous Valentine butterflies that Adde cut and glued. She was proud of her creation.

Eleanor's Growing Up

She can do so much more, and hopefully these two videos show some of that.  She understands what we say and tries to say so much too.

Our Winter

or at least part of it...what I have the time to blog about...

Eleanor enjoying what little snow we've had.  She likes it better with less snow so she can walk better.  Much less crying.

Adde LOVES the snow we've had.   She always asks to play outside and wants to be pulled on the sled.  Good exercise for mom none the less.

Adde ice skating with Mark for the first time at our park.  Eleanor and I didn't get to join in the fun, but Mark said she did well even after falling.

Adde and I getting ready to go to our first play "Llama, Llama Red Pajama".  We had a great time!

Fall Fun!

Our annual trip to a pumpkin patch.  We tried a new one this year with some friends.  The pot-bellied pig eating pumpkins was a favorite, although I don't have any pictures of it.  Hard to believe we were wearing shorts at the pumpkin patch this year.  I still made my chili dinner anyhow, even though it was 80 degrees.

Our family on the hayride.  Hard to keep Eleanor still that long.

One Size Fits All...

 

 

except for our friends' baby who can no longer squeeze into it.:) After they returned it, my girls thought it was the greatest toy around.

Halloween

Digging through the crawl space for costumes this year seemed to be fairly successful. Adde is obsessed with Fancy Nancy right now, and we found a clever way to use a dog costume we already had to become Frenchy - Fancy's dog. For some reason the bee just seemed to fit Eleanor's personality.

We walked around the neighborhood for about an hour with the neighbors, and came home with over 100 pieces of candy and $4. Not too shabby. Adde's candy stash seemed to dwindle rather quickly, and not by her either. I let Eleanor have one piece - a Milky Way. I thought she was going to burn a hole in her shirt when she signed please to get more. I have not seen her little hand move that fast or that hard before.

Birthdays Everywhere!

August and September were birthday months for us!  We celebrated Eleanor's August 24th in Minnesota, a joint celebration for both girls over Labor Day Weekend in Indiana, and Addelynn's September 26th in Minnesota.  We are so blessed to celebrate and remember the births of these two little girls.



And a few movies for fun...









Does anyone have the video of the cake presentation in Indiana? I can't seem to find it and I know it's really funny to see Adde's response to her Dora cake.

State Fair 2011

As I write about the State Fair from August, I really miss the shorts and short sleeved shirts. I am so behind in life, but I've got to start catching up this blog somehow.

This was Adde's third year at the Fair, and Eleanor's first. The girls had a great time. We tried different foods this year - no Sweet Martha's cookies. On my list was a pretzel dog, deep fried pickles with cream cheese inside, and a sweet dream peach. I succeeded in sabatozing the plans to visit each of these stands. I think the peach was my favorite. Aside from food, we saw lots of animals, watched the parade, sat on lots of different farm and yard machinery, went into the campers (one of Adde's favorite things to do), and did some crafts and coloring. Mark was a spotter this year for work, so we looked for other people wearing the bright orange shirts and handing out gift cards. On a side note, this was the first year we took Adde to the cow milking station and she had no questions about this process...hmmm.

Look Who's Driving!

 

We're back...

but I don't know for how long.  Have to be honest, time to blog seems to not exist anymore.  I did find this album I meant to share earlier, but the computer was having problems.  So here's to our own Etsy shop (for those of you who haven't been introduced to the world of Etsy, it's fabulous.  Handmade items to buy or sell.  Even better than Etsy is Heartsy - selected deals for the day on Etsy).  Anyway...

Our next little diva...

who is one today! Happy Birthday sweet baby Eleanor Jane! More to come later on the birthday thoughts...

My First Half Marathon

and I will entice you to read something about me by inserting pictures of my adorable fan club!

I ran my first half marathon this past Sunday. This has been on my bucket list for years. There is always an excuse. This year I got connected with some people from my church who were running with Team World Vision to raise money and awareness for kids in Africa who don't have clean water. I decided to join the cause. Then the famine hit East Africa, and it seemed like there were reminders every day in the paper about the realities across the globe. I cried one morning reading about the babies in Kenya and seeing a picture of a baby boy - so starkly different from my healthy baby girl. God once again softened my heart to the reality of the rest of the world.

I signed up to run this race because it was something I've always wanted to do, but I know now that God wanted to make me more aware and give me an aching heart for His kids. It truly was exhilirating to run. I felt great (until that night...oh boy). Hopefully I can do this again. I finished in 2:02:44. Now my goal is to finish under 2 hours if there is a next time.

(Eleanor just can't seem to focus on the camera for anything:))

Guesses?

Notice the mark on her cheek? Any guesses as to what caused this?

New Wheels

The girls have found new wheels this month...

Eleanor's Dedication

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ." Philippians 1:9-10

Our Game

Eleanor has a few games she enjoys to play. This is one of them. The other is handing objects to you expecting that you will say thank you and return them right away. This game does not work so well with other small children.

10 & 11 Months

Taking Eleanor's growth pictures each month has been an adventure.  She does not sit still at all and seems to not smile for the camera at all.  I also learned that involving Adde in the process involves a whole new dimension.  I learned and did the 11 month pictures while Adde was napping.  I'll just let the pictures tell the story.  They are in chronological order.

Spunky

Our sweet, laid back baby Eleanor is turning into little miss opinionated.  When she gained mobility, she also found her voice.  She's into all of Adde's stuff and complains when she can't have what she wants and screams when things don't go her way.  Take for example our lunch...(First though I need to preface the story with the fact that Eleanor was sedated for an MRI this morning.  This is about two hours after waking up, and we are told to ease her back into eating in case she is nauseous.  Start with the bland...)

She is happily eating puffs and has had about three helpings.  This is her first food of the day because of the MRI.  I figure she needs to eat something else (as I question if puffs are too much to begin with), so I get her a cracker.  She picks the cracker up, takes one bite, scowls, chucks it on the floor for the dog to eat, and starts screaming.  I cave and give her more puff.  When the puffs hit her tray, she starts clapping and smiling.  Well, it worked this time Eleanor to get your way.  At least I knew that you were feeling better and back to your opinionated self.

We love you spunky girl!

Be Happy

We have been working really hard on our attitudes in our house, especially two year old ones.  It seems like it is an hourly thing to get rid of the grouchies, find self control, use nice words and a nice voice, etc.  One morning Adde is complaining while brushing her teeth and she just so happens to be wearing a pink shirt that says "Be Happy".  I tell her that maybe she should listen to her shirt and be happy.  Without missing a beat, Adde says, "Mom, where's my pink one that says naughty?"

Another funny happened today when I asked her if she wanted to sit on my lap while watching Dora.  The grandmas just left today and I hadn't spent as much time with her last week as normal. Thought it would be good bonding.  I'm wearing capris (important detail).  When Adde climbs on, she says, "Mom your knees are ouchy," and jumps off.  "You need to wear longer paints so I don't feel your itchy things," (as she is pointing to my leg hair :)).  Guess I need to shave more often. 

Ok, one more.  We're at dinner tonight eating spaghetti...
Mark:  Who asked for spaghetti tonight?
Adde:  Me
Mark:  Who made the spaghetti for you?
Adde:  Mom
Mark:  Should you say something to mom then for making it?
Adde:  Mom, you're a good cooker!

She has us smiling so much!  Feel like there are so many things that I forget if I don't record them somewhere.  And so many have been forgotten as they are lost in my brain somewhere.

Not a game

Eleanor, I repeat, this is not a game. Please refer to my losing all control comment on a previous post. Sure feels like it some days:)