Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I've been super busy getting ready for (and recovering from) Christmas. I handmade a lot of gifts this year and that, plus a certain two year old, kept me busy. I took pictues of all the gifts I made, but since most of them haven't been received yet, I can't post them.

We all had a great Christmas. Santa Claus brought Eleanor way too much stuff this year!

She asked for (and got) the games Hungry Hippos and Elefun. She also got a fully furnished dollhouse and a tricycle. The dollhouse and games came from Santa via Matt and I. We bought the dollhouse off of Craigslist in July for $7.50. After a few coats of paint and new flooring it looked great. The bike and dollhouse furniture came from Santa by way of Granny and Grandad.

When she saw all the stuff first thing on Christmas morning she didn't know what to go first. Then when told it was time to open presents, she said "I got mine!" and didn't want to stop playing! We took video with the new video camera we got for Christmas, but Blogger is soo slow when it comes to uploading video. I think Dad posted some of the video on Imageevent.

She seemed unfazed by the two still cameras and two video cameras aimed at her the whole time. I think she's gotten used to it.

Later in the afternoon we went to my mom's friend Elia's house. Elia has three young granddaughters who Eleanor calls "my girlies". They played for a while and I think Nora enjoyed that almost as much as her presents!

One Word

SNOW!

I Stand Corrected

Eleanor cries.
Me: Did you bump your head?
Eleanor: No, I conked my noggin!

Gee, Thanks!

Nora had her movement class the other day and they were dancing with scarves. She brought me one and I twirled it. She saw me and yelled "I'm proud of you, Mommy!"

Fashion Sense

Eleanor found this old bib while we were changing her crib sheet the other day. She then proceeded to wear it around the house all day. I drew the line at letting her wear it to the store. It really went well, in her opinion, with her owl hat.

Bandaids

You may have noticed band aids on Eleanor's face in a lot of photos recently. While it's true she is a klutz (she takes after Mommy on that one) she usually doesn't fall on her face. What she does like to do is rub every scratch or bite on her face or arm when she gets tired and sucks her thumb. If all else fails she'll just rub her nose. As much as I clip her nails there always seems to be one rough edge that gives her a sore. We try to cover them up with band aids so they will heal. Then she rubs around the band aids and get sores there. It's become a long-term war.

Nora's New Class

Nora's cooking and tumbling classes have ended and we signed her up for a new class. I can't remember the name of it, but it suits her to a tee. She gets to play with noise makers, run around a large room lined with mirrors and dance to music. But I think her favorite part is that it's on Wednesdays, when Daddy doesn't work, so we both get to go and watch her.

Pictures?

You may have noticed a lack of pictures on the blog lately. There are two reasons for this. One, putting pictures on blogger is a pain in the you know what. You can upload them in order you want and theoretically move them around the post to where you want them. But that is a big hit and miss thing. Lately I will have spend a bunch of time putting pictures on, writing the post and trying to move the pictures into the right order with no luck. Then I get mad and just delete the whole thing. It's a big pain.

Second, Nora is now two and always on the go. She talks all day long and if she can't think of anything to say she will hum. She runs around the house all day playing mommy to her babies and playing store with the books on the bookcase and her play money. She needs books read to her and things taken off shelves and toys played with. By the time she taking her nap the last thing I have energy for is fighting blogger to put pictures on the blog.

Who?

Eleanor and I went last night to pick Matt up from the airport. After circling the terminal three times I finally heard from Matt that they had landed late. This worked for me, since I needed to change Eleanor's diaper. I told her about the change of plans to which she announced:

"Jessica can't find daddy!"

A Vote of Confidence

I'm making Eleanor's Halloween costume again this year. Since I got a new sewing machine for my birthday it's a lot more involved than last year's no sew lady bug. Eleanor is going to be Little Red Riding Hood. I'm making it using this pattern. It has some cheats in it because it's just a Halloween costume, so you don't want to look to closely at it. And I'm pretty much done. I just need to hem the dress and fix the ties on the cape.

For the last two weeks Eleanor would tell me I need to finish "Riding Hood" every time she say a Halloween related anything on TV. But ever since I tried the whole thing on her, including the messed up cape and un-hemmed dress, she doesn't shout that any more. Now she tells us all just how much confidence she has in my sewing skills by shouting:

"Mommy can't fix Riding Hood!"

And the really embarrassing part is that I never told her it needed fixing. She could tell just by looking at it. Yikes! A two year old thinks my sewing is bad!

Last Night

I overheard this from the hall last night just a few minutes after we put Nora down for the night:
Nora: DADDYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Matt: What? What's wrong?
Nora: I took off my pants.
Matt: What? Why did you do that?
Nora: I want new ones.

A Nora-ism

Last weekend Eleanor had a visit from her Nanny, my cousin and my cousin's two boys. One night we decided to take the kids to the park to run off some steam and feed the ducks. My cousin was driving us all in her new, huge, Suburban. As Nora was lifted into the back seat, she pointed at the DVD player and uttered excitedly " Look, it's a TVD!

The New Cook

Eleanor has quite the busy schedule these days. She goes to tumbling on Tuesdays and has cooking classes on Fridays. Today was her second class. Her Nanny was visiting for the first class and went with us. The teacher (who looked like she was twelve!) wanted to do something nice and easy for the first class, so they were going to make Kid Salad. Here Eleanor waits, not too happily, to go get her supplies.
The idea was to take a marshmallow, some raisins, part of a cherry, celery, half a canned peach and a piece of lettuce and arrange it on the plate to look like a girl wearing a skirt. Here Eleanor's Nanny starts putting it together.

And that was pretty much as far as it got. Eleanor started eating the "body parts" and we had to stop.

This week, I decided to feed her before class so she could actually finish her dish before it met an untimely end. Today she made "Easy Veggie Squares".

Basically, this is a piece of flattened crescent roll dough baked and topped with Ragu and veggies. It was actually pretty good. Eleanor, carb conscious as always, ate the Ragu off the bread and all of the broccoli and cauliflower.

While she likes the class okay, she really enjoys running around the run with the other kids during down time. The teacher obviously hasn't worked with little kids a whole lot. She expected a bunch of 2-4 year olds to patiently wait for 15 minutes while the dough baked. With nothing to do. And a lot of open, empty space. Yikes!

Tumbling

Yesterday was Eleanor's very first tumbling class. She loved the trampoline and the foam blocks, but she was a little timid. She wouldn't grab, much less swing from, the bars. She crawled off of all the equipment instead of climbing or jumping. All in all, I think it went pretty well for her first visit.

A Conversation (Sort Of)

Me: Eleanor, what are you doing?
Eleanor (Spinning in a circle) : I bizzy! (Translation: I'm dizzy!)
Me: You're a goof ball.
Eleanor: No I not. I a coconut!

Number 2!

A Day at the Beach

We went to Galveston over the weekend. Before hitting the beach we stopped for a bite to eat.

Here Eleanor waits patiently for her food.

Apparently, it was well worth the wait.

Then we changed Nora's clothes and let her play. She really enjoyed to water and the sand.

And then the ice cream man came and all thoughts except those of "Dora Ice Cream" were gone.

It was yummy!

While it lasted!

Here was the end result.

A quick dip cleaned her up and it was back to playing!

I'm Speechless

"I hold you, mommy!"

This does not mean that Eleanor is holding me or wants to hold me. It means she wants me to hold her.

I love that she says it this way and I'd be thrilled if she never said it any other way.

Craft

We made ornaments out of bakeable art dough last week and yesterday we painted them. We'll put magnets on the back of them. She's very proud of them.

She made such a mess I took her outside and hosed her down!

She had such a good time I think we'll make some Christmas ornaments soon.