Sesame Street Live!

We got free tickets to Sesame Street Live from Bryce's work, so on Saturday we went to see the show. Eleanora likes Sesame Street and loves Elmo, but we weren't sure if she'd like it or sit still that long, but the tickets were free so why not right? (Did I mention we love Comcast?? Last weekend we went with Bryce's other boss for free to see We Gotta Bingo! at Hennepin Stages, which was so fun).

Eleanora LOVED the show! She danced, asked "What's that?" about a hundred times and sat/stood/danced for the whole show. Here are some pics,

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Since Perkins is our new favorite place, we often go on the Kids Eat Free Tuesdays. Eleanora loves blueberry pancakes as much as her mommy and Perkins is very screaming-toddler-friendly so it's become a fun thing to do. On Tuesdays they have a clown face painter and balloons. Eleanora loves the balloons and the clown, here she is in the lobby with her balloon after dinner,

Her favorite new toy is this dollhouse I scored from Goodwill for $4.99. She loves it and totally "gets" it. She puts the baby down in her bed and tells her night-night, puts the mommy in the bath tub and tells her it's hot, rings the doorbell then puts the daddy through the front door, etc. It's so stinkin cute to watch her imagine,

That's all the pics I have for now!

Just some pics...

Don't have much to update on, but new pictures are being demanded so I give my blog readers what they want!

Daddy & Eleanora walking thru the mall,

Got some Xmas eve pics from my mom, here she is trying out the shopping cart,

Smelling her pup-pups ear, if you knew me as a kid (or very well as an adult, I still do this!) you'd know I was attached to smelling my blankie

Her first ever turn at the Christmas Pinata in Grandma's basement (if you're not in my family: no I don't know why we do this and yes I know it's weird),

Trav,

That's all from Xmas Eve, now onto just randoms since Xmas:

Eleanora loves reading while lying down these days,

We are trying to stay warm during this insane cold weather streak!

Eleanora almost asleep in front of Barney before bedtime,

One morning I came into our room to find Nora on the computer chair, and she had taken the keyboard off the desk and was typing away,

She decided to take her work into her room where mom wouldn't bug her,

Being chased,

Showing off her new sparkly shoes,

This girl LOVES shoes. Here she is bring me her third pair in 20 minutes to put on her,

"Your face will surely show it" part of If You're Happy and You Know it, one of the many dances she's got down pat,

And finally her cheesy grin,

What's in a name?

My little nugget is sleeping, which has put a stop to my cleaning and vaccuuming of the house, so I thought I'd blog.

We get asked all the time who we named Eleanora after, or why we picked that name since no one in our family shares it. It is sort of an unusual name, which is probably what we liked most about it.

In fact, Eleanora hasn't been on the top 1000 list since the late 1930's, and reached it's peak for popularity in 1916 at #486. This was appealing to us. I was one of 4 Katie's in my class and actually had another "Katie Peterson" at my high school. I was hoping my daughter wouldn't have to always be identified by her last initial!

But how did we come up with the name? Well early on in our baby name discussion I had said I liked the name Nora. Bryce didn't like it because it was his old roommate's girlfriend's neighbor's cousin's dog's orthodontist name and he didn't like her. (Ok it wasn't that distant of an aquintance but still long enough that it was a silly reason to not like a name - not liking someone you used to sort of know who was named that also). We both liked Eleanor - but didn't LOVE it. It was sort of harsh sounding and not as feminine as I wanted.

Then we were flipping through a baby book one day and saw that Billie Holiday's real name was Eleanora. I said to Bryce "Hey, what about Eleanora?" and we both agreed it was a great name. It was feminine, had the potential for nicknames we really liked, was not popular, and overall we thought it was very beautiful and unique.

So many many other names were tossed out through the months of my pregnancy, and some beat out Eleanora at times. But after a week or so we'd decide we didn't like it anymore. For months, the only name that we kept coming back to consistenly was Eleanora.

So on August 18th, when I was holding her in my arms, we looked at her and decided only Eleanora would do.

We've since discovered something really cool that we wish we could take credit for knowing beforehand. St. Helena's feast day is August 18th. Some info from New World Encyclopedia:

"She is considered by the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches as a saint, famed for her piety. Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church falls on August 18. The names "Saint Eleanor" and "Saint Eleanora" are usually synonymous for Saint Helen"

Neat, huh? More info on St. Eleanora here

So that's why my little lady is known as Miss Eleanora. We fall more in love with her name all the time! I love her name and think it is so beautiful, just like her. Hopefully she will love it, too.