Friday, June 25, 2010

Parks & Rec

Eleanora is all about parks. Bryant Square near us has music Tues/Thurs during the summer plus a wading pool, so Eleanora was in heaven:



(clapping)

These ones are from today, at another park with the Ketchum's,


So her love affair with parks continues while I have a list of criteria that make a park somewhere I'd like to be (I guess I'm a park snob, who knew?) - some are clearly intended for older kids and it makes me nervous b/c Eleanora has some daredevil tendencies, some have 7 big kid swings and one broken baby swing, some have metal slides that in the sun become 160 degrees and Eleanora yells "hot! hot!", etc. Also, we were recently at a park and I watched as a little boy began crying at the top of the slide, pulled his pants off and had poop all over himself/the slide/his hands/I don't even wanna know where else. He cried for like 3 minutes before his dad saw and came and brought him to the bathroom. This was my cue to whisk Eleanora away before she found herself playing in his poop. Gross.

 So we've gone to a ton of parks so far on a quest to find a few I am a fan of, and we've got a couple I actually enjoy.

By the way, her newest saying is "I'll be back". She was playing with her Little People in the living room with me tonight, and remembered she wanted something from her room, she turned to run to get it, turned around, waved her hand in the air and said "I'll be back!"

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Pamcakes, pineapple and church



We've had a busy couple of weeks, doing what I can't really remember now - I think it involved a lot of apartment showings and applications, a little traveling, a lot of family time and one toddler locking herself in the bathroom.

One night Eleanora was being very quiet, and this usually means she's up to no good. So Bryce and I went to peak on her and this is what we saw (I am hesitant to post these, because there are a lot of what looks to be cereal and goldfish pieces all over my carpet, but I decided anyone with a toddler would understand)



She was just laying down with her blankie reading up on her shapes. Adorable.

We spent Father's Day weekend at Grandpa Gary's and Grandma Joann's house. Nora played in their pool, we ate lots of good food, blew bubbles and had a fun time. She actually slept 11 hours straight thru that night, which is rare on vacation, so you know she was tuckered out. In the morning, Gary made her a bunny pancake: (aka "pamcake")







She loves pamcakes. If you ask her about spending the weekend with Grandpa she'll say "And pamcakes, and pineapple, and church"- which sums up her weekend.

Eleanora loves to watch me put on make-up. She usually pretends with me - I'll give her a brush and a closed package of blush and she'll pretend to swirl it and brush it on her face, it's very cute. Well yesterday while I was focusing on applying my mascara, she must have grabbed my eyeliner, because when I looked down she had drawn on her face and had already moved on to scooping eyeshadow out of it's case and rubbing it on her eyes,


I was laughing so hard I didn't even stop her, and she went on to show me how to use an eye lash curler,



She cracks me up.

As far as what she's been up to, it's been non-stop over here. She still talks our ear off, and a lot of the once babble is turning into sentences we understand. Sometimes she just strings words together she knows to make a sentence. We were in the car the other day and she said "I pooped, 1, 2, 3, 4. Bubbles". It's not really a matter of what words she says anymore, because she can say almost any word if you ask her to repeat you. She can spot a park a mile away and yells "PARK!!! WEE!! PARK! PLEASE MOMMY, PARK!!!" At night we start to sing her bed time song and she'll march herself into her room, we lay her down in her crib, she puts puppups ear to her nose and she says in the sweetest voice "I love you!". What else, what else? She calls herself "Nowa" now, and sometimes "Ella-nowa". She can identify red, blue, yellow, orange, pink and purple with I'd say about a 60% accuracy.

Oh and she locked herself in our bathroom last week. She often closes doors behind her. I wait until she says "Mommy help" and then I go open it for her. This time when she said it, I went over and the door was locked! I panicked. I lifted the panel to the lock (I had always wondered why it wasn't screwed down, as there are places for screws, now I know it's b/c the previous managers had a kid Nora's age when they lived here, it's for this very problem). I tried turning the tiny little peg that controls the lock, while on the phone dialing my maintenance manager to come help me. I turned until my fingers were bright red, but it wasn't moving all the way to unlock, Nora was on the other side yelling "Mommy help!" but at the same time re-locking while I was unlocking. Finally she let go and I was able to get the peg to turn all the way around and my heart started beating again. I swear I didn't breathe the entire 2 minutes she was locked in there.

She loves to dance. She loves Justin Beiber's "Baby". She dances around the living room singing "baby, baby, baby OH!, baby, baby, baby NO!" and shaking her hips and singing into the microphone.

Some pics from what I guess turned out to be all black and white photo session,






The girl just brought me her shoes and said "Nowa shoes, park mommy" So I guess we're headed to the park before nap.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

An Early Father's Day

Bryce's Father's Day tradition has become taking Eleanora to a Twins game. See last year here


My how she's grown! They don't play at home next weekend, so we went this weekend and brough Grandpa Gary (or "Ampa Kucho" as Nora would say) along with us. It was Eleanora and Gary's first game at Target Field.

Nora got her face painted with Elmo and she absolutely thought it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to her.

(I brought my crap camera along, didn't trust the nicer one to not be stepped on, so excuse the quality)






















Bryce has been practicing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" with Nora for weeks now, she loves it. She fist pumps to the "root, root, root" part, and puts up her fingers to count "1,2,3 strikes you're out" and sings almost all the words. She didn't disappoint during the 7th inning stretch, and once the song was over she immediately shouted "More!". I think Bryce had a very good early Father's Day.